;il;-llU 



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iiiifiigf;; 

H'fii'' 



iii; 






.jiwiWit 



liH ill' ; Hi ii-'i' 



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ON 



LANGUAGE, 



Works by the same Author. 



ERIC ; or, Little by Little. A Tale of Roslyn School. Seventh 
Edition. 

2 

JULIAN HOME. Third Edition, carefuUy revised. 

3 

ST. WINIFRED'S ; or, The World of School. Second Edition. 



An ESSAY on the ORIGIN of LANGUAGE, based on 
Modern Researches. 8vo. 55. 

' The uninitiated reader can, at the present time, find no better guide in the 
English language.' Athenaeum. 

' Mr. Farrar has done what no one before him has attempted, and has filled up 
in a very masterly manner a place that had been too long vacant in the popular 
literature of science .... His book will be read with pleasure by those to whom 
the subject is wholly new, and will command the respect of proficients in philology. 
As a popular introduction to the science it is among the best books in any lan- 
guage, and is unique in our own.' Spectator. 



CHAPTERS 



ON 



LANGUAGE 



BY THE 



EEV. FEEDERIC W. FAREAE, M.A. 

LATE FELLOW OP TRINITY COLLEGE, CAJIBRJDGE ; 

HON. FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON ; 

AUTHOR OF 'THE ORIGIN OF 

LANGUAGE' ETC. 



Non excogitandum neque fmgendum, sed inveniendum quid Natura faciat 
d,ut ferat. Bacon. 

'"Eycb jtiej/ ovv irepl rovrwv as evpou Kol aveyvwv ovrws eypa\pa' el 
S4 ris 6,Wa)s ^ovX-fjcreTUi, So^d^eiv irepl avTwv, aveyKXriThv exeVco tV 
irepoyvwfiocrvvriv. Josephus, Antt. x. 11, 7. 




LONDON : 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

1865. 






LONDON' 

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 

NEW-STRBBT SQUARE 



TO 



E. B. LITCHFIELD, ESQ. 



nr MEMORY OP 



MANY YEAES OF ERIENDSHIP, 



THESE PAGES 



ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 



When, more than four years ago, I published my book 
on the ' Origin of Language/ it was, I believe, the only 
book distinctly devoted to that subject which had 
appeared in England since the end of the last century. 
Since that time Philology has been daily gaining ground 
as a study of infinite importance, and I believe that the 
stimulus it has received has been mainly due to the 
eloquence and genius of Professor Max Miiller, whose 
first series of Lectures was published in 1861. The 
views however which it was the object of my Essay to 
explain and illustrate, although they were propounded 
by philologists of the most unquestioned eminence, have 
found in Professor Miiller a strong opponent, and there- 
fore have met in England with but few converts and 
fewer supporters. 

Nevertheless after constant study, and the most 
candid consideration of the objections urged against 
them, I believe that those views, in spite of the vehe- 
ment assaults directed against them, remain absolutely 
unshaken. Now, if they are true, they furnish to Ety- 
mologists so simple and luminous a principle whereby 



VUl PREFACE. 

to guide their researches, and they throw so strong a 
light on one of the most interesting problems that can be 
presented for our solution, that it is most desirable that 
they should not be dismissed unexamined and with a 
sneer. I have therefore devoted some portion of this 
book to a careful^ detailed, and respectful review of all 
that has been urged against them, and I have thought 
it due to the high authority deservedly attributed to 
Professor Miiller's opinion, to state those objections in 
his own language. The answer may not be convincing 
to every one, but at least it will be admitted that the 
objections have been fairly met. I hope that I have 
never used a single expression inconsistent with the 
high respect which is due to the courtesy, learning, and 
ability of so eminent an opponent. 

The controversial part of the book however only 
occupies a few chapters, and even in these I have 
steadily kept in view the object of bringing the theory 
into clearer and fuller relief, — of placing it as far as 
possible on a scientific basis, — of removing the mis- 
representations which have clustered round it, — and of 
supplying linguistic facts and illustrations which might 
be valuable to the student without any reference to his 
particular views. And, besides this, there are whole 
chapters of the book which have no controversial aspect 
whatever, and which may, I hope, contain suggestions 
not wholly unworthy of consideration by scholars of 
every shade of opinion. 

I should not for a moment venture to speak of my 
work in these terms if it contained nothing beyond the 



PREFACE. IX 

results of my own thought. But besides my own 
reasonings and speculations it sets forth the views of 
those who are incomparably more entitled to a hearing, 
A glance at almost any page will show that the au- 
thorities quoted are neither few nor unimportant ; and, 
as I have carefully avoided an idle parade of learned 
names, I can assure the reader that there are very few 
references in the book — certainly none of any im- 
portance — which have not been derived immediately 
from my own reading. And, more than this, I have 
often fortified my position by the authority of others 
in cases where the thought was my own, and was ex- 
pressed in my own language. In one or two places, 
which are always carefully pointed out, I closely fol- 
low the reasonings of the late Professor Heyse, whose 
book {System der Sprachwissenschaft) is one of the 
wisest and most beautiful treatises on this subject which 
have ever fallen into my hands. The reader too will 
find constant allusions to other profound philological 
writings, which I have always studied with great profit. 
I have placed at the end of the book a list of the works 
from which I have derived most advantage, and which 
have been most constantly in my hands. 

In conclusion I have only to thank those critics who 
bestowed such indulgent consideration on my previous 
labours. Their approval, and the still more valuable 
notice of my work by some very eminent scholars, both 
English and continental, have encouraged me to pro- 
ceed. My present book is solely addressed to serious 
students. I am indifferent to the view taken of it by 



X PREFACE. i 

I 

the prejudiced and the ignorant ; yet as I am solely * 
actuated by a desire for truth, I have tried to eliminate | 
every expression which was likely to cause needless •! 
offence. If any such have escaped my notice I trust [ 
that they will be attributed to a lively interest in [ 
my subject, and that no one will consider them to have I 
been dictated by a presumptuous or unkindly tone of 
mind. I shall be the first to regret it, if I have ever | 
been misled by the zeal of controversy into any want of 
amenity or moderation, 

I cannot hope to have escaped errors, and for these 
I venture to ask an indulgent consideration. These 
pages have been written, and the proof-sheets corrected, 
under a pressure of other avocations which has often 
made me hesitate whether I ought not wholly to aban- 
don this subject to those who can study it under greater 
advantages. Any mistakes into which I have fallen are 
due to this cause, and not either to wilfulness or care- 
lessness. Whether they are pointed out by friendly 
or by unfriendly critics, I shall always be ready to 
acknowledge and to correct them with cheerfulness 
and candour. 

Harrow: August, 1865. 



SYNOPSIS, 



CFAPTEE I 




LANGUAGE A HUMAN DISCOVERY. 


PAGE 


Nothing humanly discoverable has been made a subject of 


revelation ....... 1 


Language was humanly discoverable 


3 


Certainty of .its non-revelation 


5 


Scripture asserts its- discovery by man 


. 7-8 


'God said' 


8 


Adam, the Name-giver 


. 10 


Nature's teaching . 


. 11 


Slavery to the letter 


12 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE EXPERIMENT OF PSAMMETICHUS. 

The story probably true ..... 

It confirms inferences from other data 

(i.) Deserted children would probably evolve a language 
(ii.) Animal-names among the earliest words . 
(iii.) Animal-names naturally Imitative 

Their value as suggesting the Idea of Language . 

"Wild-children. Their Onomatopceias 



14 
14 
15 
16 
17 
19 
20 



CHAPTEE III. 
THE NAMING OF ANIMALS. 



Primitive necessity for Onomatopoeia 
Classification of animal-names 



xu 



SYJN^OPSIS. 



The class under wluch they must have originally fallen 

Australian names for animals 

Chinese Onomatopoeias 

Animal-names in Sanskrit 

In Hebrew 

In Ancient Egyptian 

Names adopted by Colonists 

They are either (1) Borrowed native names 

Or (2) Expressive of attributes 

Or (3) Misapplications suggested by analogy 

Or (4) When invented are invariably Imitative 

Imitative words invented in modern Argots 

Why new words must be Imitative 

Inferences . . . 



CHAPTEE IV. 



THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 

Primitive inferiority of Man 

Man created with only the capacity of Speech 

Even if Language were revealed . 

A priori objections are valueless , 

And presumptuous 

And contradictory of existing facts 

Existing degradation of human races 

The ' state of nature ' not necessarily miserable 

Fancies versus Facts, respecting the first men 

The Darwinian hypothesis 

Language furnishes fresh proofs of our position . 

Bizarre complexity and cumbrousness of savage dialects 

Opinion of Mr. Garnett .... 

And of Mr. A. Gallatin .... 

Inference . 



CHAPTEE V. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT. 

' Invenisse non instituisse ' 

Admitted fewness of roots 

Very few words necessary for the wants of life 

Germs of Speech developed by the Intellect 

Eeahsation of the Ego 



SYNOPSIS. 


Xlll 




PAGB 


Gradual distinctness of Sensuous Impressions 


63 


Sensations become Perceptions .... 


64 


Intuitions ....... 


65 


Representations ...... 


65 


Concepts ....... 


66 


Words correspond to Eepresentations 


67 


Illustration of the Process . , . . 


67 


Eecapitulation ...... 


69 



CHAPTER VI. 

POSSIBLE MODES OF EXPRESSING THOUGHT. 

Tactile Language . 

Art, a Language addressed to the Eye 

Language of Gesture 

Its advantages and imperfections . 

Superiority of Audible Language . 



71 
72 
73-6 
77 
79 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOUND AS A VEHICLE OF THOUGHT. 



Analogies of Light and Sound 

The Voice . 

Its penetrative power 

Machine?5r by which it is produced 

Elementary Sounds 

Material of Speech 



81 
82 
83 
84-5 
86 
87 



CHAPTER Vin. 



INTERJECTIONS. 



Ultimate identity of Interjection and Onomatopoeia 

Two classes of Interjections 

Inteqections in different languages 

Home Tooke's denunciation of them 

Interjections are parts of Speech 

The source of many words 

Their value in Etymology . 

' Roots ' . 

Dignity of Interjections 

The part they play in Literature 



88 
89 
90-1 
92 
93 
94 
96 
96 
98 
98-100 



XIV 



SYIy^OPSIS. 



Their liigh lingiustic importance 
Originally more nxmierons . 
Impressions provoke expressions. 
The Idea of Speech 



Ancient stories 



PAGB 
. 100 
. 101 

101-2 
. 103 



CHAPTER IX. 

LAUTGEBERDEN, OR VOCAL GESTURES. 

The term due to Heyse .... 
Expressions of the will .... 
Eecapitulation ..... 
What is Prof. Max Miiller's view? 



104 
105 
106 
107 



CHAPTER X. 



VOCAL IMITATIONS. 



Epicurus . . . . . • 

Instinct of Imitation 

Onomatopoeias imitate the subjective impression 

Story of Phsedrus .... 

Diversity of Imitations for the same Sound 

Not mere passive echoes . 

But ideally modified 

Names for Thunder 

Instinctive evolution of Language 

Myths, indicative of Onomatopoeia 



109 
109 
110 
111 
112 
114 
114 
115 
116-7 
. 117 



CHAPTER XI. 

FROM IMITATIVE SOUNDS TO INTELLIGENT SPEECH. 

Sounds developed into words . . . . . 121 

Connection between Sound and Sense . . , .121 

Sounds, to become signs, must have been self-explaining . . 122 

The only theory of Language . . . . .123 



CHAPTER XII. 

ONOMATOPCEIA. 

Matter-words and Form- words 

Sounds as the signs of other sounds 

Vocal imitation only a stepping-stone for Language 

Sounds became Words .... 

Imitation the starting-point 



124 
126 
127 
128 
128 



SYNOPSIS. 



XV 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY ; HOW REFUTED. 

PAGE 

First objection. ' Onomatopoeias few in number^ . . . 130 

Dictionaries of them . . . . . .132 

They become greatly modified in form . . . .132 

Just as alphabetic letters lose their pictorial significance . .134 

The Hebrew Alphabet . . . . . .136 

Closeness of the Analogy ..... 137-8 

New words, not self-expHcative, never succeed . . .138 

Second objection. ' Animal-names noi Imitative' . . 140 

A few such instances would prove nothing . . .141 

But nearly all of those adduced are Imitative . . .141 

As may be seen by their cognate forms : 

The word ' Goose '...... 143 

The word ' Hen ' . . . . . .144 

The word ' Dove '...... 145 

The word 'Hog' ...... 164 

The word 'Cat' . . . . . .146 

The word 'Dog' ..... 147-9 



CHAPTER XIV. 



FERTILITY OF ONOMATOPOETIC ROOTS. 

Third objection. ' Onomatopoeias are sterile ' 

The root ' cuckoo ' . 

The root ' eru ' . . . 

Greneral predicative 'roots' inconceivable . 

Onomatopoeia a luminous principle of Etymology 

Immense fertility of Imitative roots 

Fertility of the primitive sounds ma, ta, da, &e. 

Onomatopoeias even among the numerals . 



152 
152 
163 
154 
155 
156 
157-61 
. 162 



CHAPTER XV. 

DIGNITY OF ONOMATOPCEIA 

Language an echo of Nature 

Fourth objection. ' Onomatopoeias are modern ' 

If true, an argument in their favour 

Their function in Poetry . 

Harmonies of Language 



165 
166 
167 
168 
169 



XVI 



SYNOPSIS. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SUPPOSED ILLUSORINESS OF THE SEARCH 

The search not ' lawless' but the reverse 

Errors of ' scientific ' Etymologists 

Prof. Miiller's instances aU fail 

The interjections Fie ! &c. 

' Squirrel ' . 

'Katze' .... 

' Thunder ' Onomatopoetic in all languages 

Examination, and probable history of the word 



PAGE 

. 171 
. 174 
. 174 
174-6 
. 176 
. 176 
. 177 
178-82 



CHAPTER XVII. 

REFLEX IMITATIVE TENDENCY OF LANGUAGE. 



The charge of ' fancifuhiess ' 
Falls to the ground 
Views of St. Augustine 
Contain a residuum of truth 
Instances . 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE PART PLATED BY THE IMAGINATION. 

' How are ideas not expressive of sound to be accounted for by 

Onomatopoeia?' .... 

Illustration of the subject from the Chinese Ideography 
Fancy indispensable .... 

Close analogy to the Progress of Language 
Verbal roots could not have been the earliest 
Feebleness of abstraction among tmcivilised races 

• Ideas of going ' . 
' Ideas of standing ' 

* Ideas of tasting ' . 



CHAPTER XIX. 

METAPHOR. 

Sound, the exponent of things soundless . 

All impressions subjective 

The Sensorium Commune .... 

Instinctively observed analogies of different senses 

Light and Sound ..... 

Other senses . . ... 



SYNOPSIS. 



XVll 



Grenders .... 

Catachresis 

' The Pathetic Fallacy ' . 

Personification 

Human relationships attributed to things inanimate 

The Unseen described by analogy . 

Analogies to describe the Soul, &c. 

Localisation of the passions 

Hieroglyphics 

Colours in metaphor 

Metaphor among the Numerals 



PAGE 

. 212 
. 212 
. 214 
. 214 
. 215 
. 216 
219-21 
. 221 
. 222 
. 223 
223-26 



CHAPTER XX. 
METAPHOR IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES. 
Metaphor most abundant at earliest stages 
Hebrew vagueness of terms 
Hebrew Metaphors 
Metaphors in Greek Tragedy 
Metaphor and National Character , 
Kafir Metaphors . 
Malay Metaphors . 
Chinese Homonyms 
Metaphors in the Argot . 
Evanescence of conscious Metaphor 
Universal consequent confusion of Metaphors 
Especially in Shakspeare . 
Metaphor, happily indispensable to Language 
Their illustrative Power . 
Languages without Metaphor 
What the results would be 



. 227 

. 229 

. 230 

. 231 

. 231 

. 233 

. 233 

. 234 

236-7 

. 237 

. 239 

. 240 

. 241 

. 242 

242-4 

. 245 



CHAPTER XXI. 
OTHER LINGUISTIC PROCESSES 
Recapitulation 

Struggle for existence among words 
Different possible characteristics. ' Left ' 
Contradictory roots 
Their explanation , 
Antiphrasis 
Errors about it 
Proelus's fifteen methods 
Reducible to three or four 



247 
250 
251 
251 
252 
253 
254 
255 
256 



XVlll 



SYIfOPSIS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE NATURE OF WORDS. 









PAGE 


Aiialogists and Anomalists ..... 258 


Confusions of the subject . 






. 258 


Heraclitus .... 






. 260 


Democritus 






. 261 


Weak arguments on both sides 






. 262 


Universality of Analogist views 






. 263 


The Jews Analogists 






. 264 


Paronomasia 


. 




. 265 


Mystic import of words 






. 266 


And names. Biblical Etymologies 






. 267 


'Adam' .... 






. 268 


Insulting name-changes 






. 271 


Myths about Adam 






. 272 


Import of names among the Greeks 






272-5 


Among the Eomans 






. 275 


Among the Modems 






. 276 


Alterations of names 






. 277 


Euphemism 






. 278 


Its source .... 






278-80 


The primitive granite of Language 






. 280 


Dangerous hypocorisms of Vice 






. 281 


The ' fatal force ' of words 






. 283 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE NATURE OF WORDS — Continued. 

Sound and sense ....... 286 

The Senses, and the Understanding .... 287 

The three factors of a word ..... 287 

Words express nothing of the nature of things . . .288 

They teach us nothing about things .... 289 

Which is a knowledge impossible to ns . . . .290 

And they teach us nothing about our abstract nature . .291 

A knowledge no less impossible to us . . . . 291 

They merely express relations ..... 292 

And even as the signs of our conceptions they are essentially 
imperfect . . . . . . . 293 

Instances . ....... 294 

They are the starting-point of the fuU-grown Intelligence . 295 

But the goal of its earlier development .... 295 

Their immense historical, intellectual, and moral importance 296-7 

Conclusion . . . . . . ,298 



EREATA AND ADDENDA. 

Page 42, line 11, for which read whom. 

„ 43. See some examination of the question about races with a deficient language 
in Mr. E. Burnet Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind 
(p. 77 sq.), who also has some admirable chapters on gesture language, 
picture writing, &c. Unfortunately Mr. Tylor's work appeared after 
my own was in print. I am glad to find in his two chapters on myths 
abundant confirmations of the arguments which I have used in a 
paper on • Traditions real and fictitious' in the Trans, of the Ethnol. 
Soc. 1865. 

„ 156. The Essay of Buschmann's here referred to will be found translated in 
the sixth volume of the Philological Society's Transactions (1852-1853). 
Buschmann shows that even as far back as the Etymol. Magnum these 
sounds had been noticed, thus : ■nairno'i Se aTro -njs tS>v iralSmv rSiv iiiKptov 
■npocr<}>uiVTJ(Te<a^, ois <^i)<7U' 'O/unjpos, ttotI yovj/aTa namrd^owLV {H. V. 406). 
bvo/J-aTOTre-froC-qTai, oSi' -^ Ae'^ts. 

„ 197, line 5. Similarly ' parts of speech ' have little or no existence in the 
gesture-language of deaf mutes. 

„ 212. Mr. Mayhew has collected some amusing anomalies to which the German 
genders are liable: thus, Der L'dffel, the spoon; die Gabel, the fork; 
das Messer, the knife : Der Anfang, the beginning ; die Mitte, the 
middle ; das Ende, the end ; die Tinte, the ink ; das Papier, the paper, &c. 
Obviously there is no universal principle at work here, but only the 
play of a bizarre and arbitrary fancy. 

„ 233. For some specimens of Australian metaphors, see the Transactions of the 
Ethn. Soc. 1865, p. 292. 

„ 281. In the passage of M. Vamb^ry's travels here alluded to, he says that the 
value of a dress is in Turkestan mainly estimated by the stiffness of 
the sound which it makes. * The Oriental,' he observes, * is fond of the 
Tchak-tchuck or rustling tone of the dress.' {Travels, p. 173.) 



ON LANGUAGE 



CHAPTER I. 



Hdvra Oeia koX avOpwiriva iravra. — Hippokrates. 

GrOD, who, in the words of Lactantius,^ was ' the artificer 
alike of the intelligence, of the voice^ and of the tongue,' 
gave to man, with those three gifts, the power of con- 
structing a language for himself. Now we are entitled 
to conclude from the widest possible observation of 
Grod's dealings with the human race, that He never 
bestows directly what man can obtain for himself by 
the patient and faithful use of intrusted powers. 
Science, for instance, by which we mean the sum total 
of all that has been discovered respecting the laws of 
nature, has furnished the human race with blessings of 
inestimable value ; and yet its secrets were never ^ 
revealed by a voice from heaven, and, although within 
the reach of human industry, were absolutely unknown 

1 'Dens et mentis, et voeis, et linguae artifex.' — Lactant. Instt. vi. 21. 

2 ' The Scriptures have never yet revealed a single scientific truth.^ — 
. Hugh Miller, Testimony of the EocTcs, p. 265. 



2 ON LANGUAGE. ch. t. 

to the ancient Hebrews. The living oracles intrusted 
to their charge spoke much of the nature of Grod, and 
revealed to the world that which, of himself, man could 
but dimly and most partially discover or understand — 
his relation to his Creator, the scheme of the divine 
government, and the means appointed for the purifica- 
tion and deliverance of the soul. The high majesty and 
grandeur of this revelation, its sacred origin and un- 
speakable importance, must not blind us to the fact that 
there are other^ revelations also, which unveil to us in 
all their marvellous magnificence the works of God, and 
which yet were never accorded to Psalmist, or Priest, or 
Prophet, but to those great benefactors of their race 
who from time to time have been inspired to devote 
lives of ardent and devout study to the observation of 
the laws which G-od has imposed on His created Uni- 
vel-se. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the blessings 
•which science, by thus deciphering the divine records 
of Creation, has conferred upon mankind ; yet her 
lessons have never been whispered by angel or law- 
giver, but, if we may borrow a poet's simile, they have 
been unclenched by sheer labour from the granite hand 
of nature; they have ever been not immediate but 
mediate ; not revealed to the idle, but discovered by the 
patient; not direct from Grod, but granted indii-ectly 
through the use of appointed means. Men have 
attained to them, not by gliding down the lazy stream 
of dogmatic inference, but by 

Springing from crj-stal step to crystal step 



* 'Deus natiira cognoscendus, dein doctrina recognoscendus.' — Ter- 
tnllian. ' Duo sunt quse in cognitionem Dei ducant, Creatio et Scriptura.'' 
Aug. 



CH. I. LANGUAGE, A HUMAN DISCOVERY. 3 

of that bright ascent which leads to the serene heights 
of knowledge. ^And because all those scattered rays of 
beauty and loveliness which we behold spread up and 
down all the world over, are only the emanations of 
that inexhaustible light which is above^ they have 
climbed up always by those sunbeams to the Eternal 
Father of Light.' Grod never lavishes gratuitously that 
which man can earn by faithful industry : this is an 
axiom which may be confidently claimed, a truth which 
may be broadly asserted, of every discovery which was 
possible to the intelligence of man. 

That language is such a discovery — that it is possible 
for man to have arrived at speech from a condition 
originally mute, merely by using the faculties which 
Grod had implanted — has been proved repeatedly, and 
will, we hope, be further illustrated in the following 
pages. Even those who cling with tenacity to a 
belief in the revelation of language are compelled to 
admit the^ 'possibility of its invention. How, indeed, 
can this be denied when it has been a matter of con- 
stant observation that deaf and dumb children, before 
they have been taught, can and do elaborate for them- 
selves an intelligible language of natural and conven- 
tional signs ? If, then, the invention of a voiceless 
language, addressed to the eye instead of the ear, — a 
language so much more cumbrous and difficult than 
articulate speech, and one in which the learner can 
receive little or no assistance from the multitudinous 
echoes of external nature, — be thus easily within the 
range of human capabilities so unusually limited, we 
must conclude that a spoken language of which man 

1 Chastel, Be la Eaison, pp. 283, 295. Dug. Stewart, Phil, of the 
Mind, iii. 1. Comp. Home Tooke, Divers, of Furley, i. 2. 

B 2 



4 ON LANGUAGE. ch. i. 

must at once have perceived the analogon among the 
living creatures with which he was surrounded, and 
which required for its ample commencement no achieve- 
TYient more difficult than the acceptance of sounds as the 
signs either of sounds or of the things which the sounds 
naturally recall, was one which man, by the aid of the 
divine instincts within him, would spontaneously and 
easily invent, with nature as his beneficent instructress, 
and all the world before him as the school wherein to 
learn. We may therefore conclude, as Dante ^ did five 
centuries ago. 

That man speaks 
Is Nature's prompting, whettier thus or thus 
She leaves to you as ye do most affect it; 

^Entia non sunt multiplicanda prseter necessitatem,' 
said William of Occam ; * frustra fit per plura quod fieri 
potest per pauciora.' It is astonishing how much spu- 
rious philosophy a,nd spurious theology is cut away by 
this razor of the Nominalists. Those theologians who, 
by the liberal intrusion of unrecorded and purely 
imaginary miracles into every lacuna of their air-built 
theories, do their best to render science impossible, 
have earned thereby the merited suspicion of scientific 
men. Nevertheless, all hut the most obstinate and the 
most prejudiced even of theologians ought to admit that 
if man coidd have invented language, we may safely 
conclude that he^ did; for the wasteful prodigality of 
direct interposition and miraculous power which plays 
the chief part in the idle and anti-scriptural exegesis of | 
many churchmen finds no place in the divine economy : 
of God's dealings displayed to us either in nature, in 

1 Carey's Dante, Par ad. xxvi. 128, 

2 Zobel, Ursp\ d. Sjyrache, ad f. 



CH. I. LANGUAGE, A HUMAN DISCOVERY. 5 

history, or in the inspired Word itself. This single 
consideration ought to be sufficient for any mind philo- 
sophically trained ; but as too many engines caanot be 
employed against the invincible bastions of prejudice, 
let us proceed to further and yet more conclusive argu- 
ments. I have stated elsewhere ^ the positive reasons 
which are adequate to disprove the revelation of language. 
The whole character of human speech, its indirect and 
imperfect methods, its distant metaphoric approxima- 
tions, its traceable growth and decay, the recorded 
stages of historic development and decadence through 
which it passes, and the psychological and phonetic 
laws which rule these organic changes, furnish us at 
once with a decisive criterion of its human origin. An 
invention which, in spite of all its power and beauty, 
is essentially imperfect, could not have come direct from 
Grod. The single fact that the spiritual and abstract 
signification of roots is never the original one, but 
always arises from some incomplete and often wholly 
erroneous application or metaphor, is of itself adequate 
to confirm an a priori probability. The vast multitude* 
of human languages — certainly not fewer than 750 in 
number — differing from each other in words, in struc- 
ture, and in sound, points inevitably, as we shall see 
hereafter to the same conclusion. 

Speech, moreover, is the correlative of the under- 
standing.^ It can express nothing which has not been 

^ Origm of Lang., ^-p. 23-29. 

2 The number is very uncertain. Pott reckons about a thousand, 
Die TJngleichheit d. Menschl. Rassen. 230-244. Adrian Balbi reckons 
860, Atlas Ethnogr. Dissert. Prelim. Ixxv. sqq. Crawfurd, Ethnol. 
Trans, i. 335, 1863. 

^ Heyse, Syst. d. Sprachwissenschaft, p. 51. We do not deny to 
language a certain maieutic power which enables us to bring our con- 



6 ON LANGUAGE. ch. i. 

developed by intelligence and thought. It can have 
no existence independent of, or separate from our con- 
ception of things. It may be iinahle to keep pace ivith 
the advancing power of abstraction, but it never can by 
any possibility anticipate or outstrip it. A language 
without corresponding conceptions would be a babble of 
unintelligible sounds ; * for words,' says ^ Bacon, ^ are 
but the image of matter ; and, except they have life 
of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all 
one as to fall in love with a picture.' If then a 
lang-uage were dictated, or in any other manner 
directly revealed to the earliest men, the comprehen- 
sion ^ of ideas must necessarily have been inspired with 
the signs which expressed them ; in other words, the full- 
grown understanding must have been created together 
with the language, since the only difference between 
the imitative vocal faculty of children and some animals 
consists in the fact that with animals the sound in most 
instances remains a sound, while the understanding of 
man teaches him the conceptions joari passu with the 
sounds, so that the sounds become signs. But to assert 
in this sense the creation of the human understanding, is, 
after the manner of certain ignorant divines, to force upon 
us as an article of faith, that which is nothinor more than 

ceptions into clearer light, by reducing them into shape, and by enabling 
us to reason respecting them ; but when Hamann calls speech the ' Dei- 
para unserer Vernunft,' it is easy to see that the expression can with at 
least equal truth be reversed. 

1 Advancement of Learning,^. 100; comparethedictumof the Buddhist 
philosopher : ' Le nom et la forme ont pour cause Tintelhgenee ; et I'in- 
telligence a pour cause le nom et la forme.' — Burnouf, Le Lotus de la 
bonne Foi, p. 550. ' Wie der Mensch eine Einheit von Geist und Leib, 
so ist das "Wort die Einheit yon BegrifF und Laut.' — Becker, Organism 
d. Sprache, § 1, 2, 4. Hermann, Das Problem d. Sprache, p. 1. 

^ Maine de Biran, Orig. de Lang. (Euvxes ined. iii. 239. 



CH. I. LANGUAGE, A HUMAN DISCOVERY. 7 

an arbitrary ^ and anti-philosophic hypothesis. For to 
suppose the creation of a full-grown understanding 
contradicts the very nature of the understanding as 
^ the 2 faculty of relations or comparisons.' An under- 
standing can no more exist without having passed 
through the very processes which constitute its activity, 
than a tree can show its thousand layers of wood with^ 
out having passed through as many seasons of growth 
and change. The impulse to self-development, and the 
capacity for it, are indeed innate in the higher races of 
man; but to assert that the results^ of this impulse 
were revealed, is to contradict both History and the 
order of nature. For nothing is more certain, even 
as an historical fact, than that man did not come into 
the world with his abstract ideas ready made ; nothing 
is more certain than that the growth of abstract ideas 
can be distinctly traced, and that, to be primitive, a 
word ^ r)iust express some material image. 

For all reasoners, except that portion of the clergy who 
in all ages have been found among the bitterest enemies ^ 
of scientific discovery, these considerations have beeu 
conclusive. But, strange to say, here, as in so many 
other instances, this self-styled orthodoxy, more ortho^ 
dox than the Bible itself, directly contradicts the very 
Scriptures which it professes to explain, and, by sheer 

* Maine de Biran, uhi supr. p. 233. 

2 Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 4, note. 
' Heyse, I. c. 

* Benloew, Sur V Origine des Noms de Nombre, pp. ix. 7. 

* Witness the lives of Vigilius, of Giordano Bnino, of Vanini, of 
Galileo, of Kepler, of Descartes, of La Peyrere, of Dr. Morton, of the 
early geologists, and of hundreds more. There is hardly a single nascent 
science against which theological dogmatism has not injuriously paraded 
its menacing array of misinterpreted or inapplicable texts. 



8 OlS LANGUAGE. ch. i. j 

misinterpretation, succeeds in producing a needless and ■ 

deplorable collision between the statements of Scripture I 

and those other mighty and certain truths which have ^ 

been revealed to Science and to Humanity as their glory I 

and reward. On the human origin of language, the t 

voice of the Bible coincides perfectly with the voice of j 

reason and of science. In the passage which deals f 

directly with the origin of language, the Bible implies, 5^ 

as distinctly as it is possible to imply, that language ^ I 

resulted from the working of human faculties, and was ■ 

not a direct gift from G-od to man. l 

We shall consider the chief passage in G-enesis im- 
mediately : but before doing so it is necessary to clear 
away a preliminary misconception. We find repeatedly, 
in the earlier chapters of the Bible, the expression 

' God said ; ' and as this is used before the mention of ' 

Adam's gift of speech, it is at once inferred that Ian- ; 

guage was revealed. Sui-ely, such a method of inter- ' 

pretation, stupidly and slavishly literal, and wholly j 

incapable of rising above the simplest anthropomor- I 

phism, shows that that vail which was upon the hearts ' 

of men when Moses was read in their synagogues some I 

1800 years ago, is by no means as yet removed I j 
Luther, far more advanced, and far more liberal than 

many modern theologians, could enforce the explana- j 
tion that ^ God said ' had nothing to do with the voice or 
articulations of human language ; Bishop Patrick could 
write * wherever in the history of the creation these 

^ Any one who wishes to support by authorities the Eevelation of 
language has on his side Mohammed and some of the Kabbis ! See 
Kircher, Tur. Bah. iii. 4, p. 147. Miehaeler, De Orig. Ling. Vien. 1738. 
Everything that can be said on the question is to be found in M. de 
Bonald, Ladeyi-Eoche, and Siissmileh, Versuch eines Beweises dass die 
erste Sjprache ihren TJrsjprung vom Scho;pfer erhalten habe. — Berl. 1766. 



CH. I. LANGUAGE, A HUMAN DISCOVERY. 9 

words are used, God said, it must be understood to 
mean ' He ^ willed ; ' nay, more, St. Grregory of Nyssa 
could vigorously and eloquently denounce the hypo- 
thesis of a revealed language as^ 'Jewish nonsense and 
folly' {(j)\vapia koX fjLarai6T7)9 'lovhaUrf), and St. Augus- 
tine could unhesitatingly write " Vidit (ratio) impo- 
nenda esse rebus vocabula, id est significantes quosdam 
sonos:' yet some modern writers, essentially aggres- 
sive and essentially retrogressive, — doctors of that school 
which learns nothing, and forgets nothing, and whom 
eighteen centuries have only pushed back behind the 
earliest Fathers in tolerance and liberality, — can only 
see in the certainty of a language discovered by man- 
kind ' a materialist,^ and deistic hypothesis ! ' Before 
being guilty of an inference so groundless as the sup- 
posed revelation of language from the obiter dictum of 
an 'auctoris aliud agentis' — an inference which contra- 
dicts the express assertion of the Jehovist when he is 
treating directly of the subject — might they not have 
observed that the same expression is used by the Elohist 
of Grod's laws respecting animals ? ' And Grod blessed 
them (i. e. great whales, and every winged fowl, &c.), 

' As indeed it is rendered in the Arabic version. 

2 Contra Eunomium Or. xii., Aug. de Ordine, ii. 12. Cf. St. Basil, 
Orat. ii., and Severianus, Be Mimdi Creat. (Bibl. Patr. xii. 119). 

^ M. Ladevi-Roche, "vrho in his treatise, Be I' Origine du Langage (p. 7, 
1860, Bordeaux), undertakes to resuscitate the moribund reasonings of 
M. de Bonald. Such arguments in this day are an anachronism, and they 
are not worth the trouble of refuting. There is nothing of the shghtest 
value in his little treatise, and Science can afford to despise the declama- 
tory anathemas hurled by the most ignorant of men at all her votaries, 
from Thales and Anaxagoras down to Darwin and Lyell. ' Cette opini^ 
semblait abandonnee, quand elle a ete relevee de nos jours parune ecole 
dhtn zele fougueux et plus orthodoxe que la Bible, et qui semble avoir pris 
a tache de realiser le fameux Credo quia absurdumJ — Baudry, Be la 
Science du Langage, p. 32. 



10 ox LANGUAGE. ch. i. 

saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters 
in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth ' (Gen. 
i, 22). Are we then to infer from this that G-od also 
revealed a language to animals,^ and invented a dialect 
for birds and whales, or rather are we to open our pur- 
blind eyes to the fact that the letter killeth, and the 
spirit giveth life? 

But, as I have said already, the assertors of revealed 
language distinctly contradict the very book to which, 
in their desire to usurp the keys of all knowledge, they 
groundlessly appeal as a scientific authority. For what 
does the Jeh ovist say ? * And out of the ground the 
Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every 
fowl of the air ; and brought them unto Adam to see ^ 
what he luoidd call them : and ivhatsoever Adam called 
every living creature, that was the name thereof. And 

^ Cf. Steinthal Gesch. de Sprachwissenchaft, § 15. Charma, Ess. sur 
le Langage, p. 247. 

2 niX'1p=to try. In tlie Arabic Yersion it is wrongly rendered 'to 
teach,' 'ut ostenderet ei quod vocaret.' — "Walton's Folyglot. On the 
other hand the Chaldee version renders ' man became a li\ing animal,' 
(X^n ^^^h ) by 'a speaking spirit' (i^^^rOD nn^). If these versions 
were correct, it is obvious that the texts would contradict each other as 
much as they do in M. Ladevi-Eoche's inference from Gen. ii. 19, ' Ce 
que signifie que I'homme avait ete cree pensant et parlant' (p. 9). One 
of the rabbis explains 'that was the name thereof,' to mean its name in 
the thought of God before Adam uttered it. Hamann, Herder's friend, 
approves this explanation, and illustrates it by ' the Word was God.' — 
John i. 1. For a mass of idle learning (?) on the subject of Adam's 
ovoiJLoeea-ia, see Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 335; Jos. Antt. 1, 2; Fabricius, 
Cod. Pseudep. v. 6 ; Buddseus, Hist. V. T. i. 93; Heidegger, Hist. Fair. 
i. 148; Witsius, § 3, 162; Carpzov. Apparat. CrzY. p. 113; Otho, if j-. 
Bah. s. V. Adam ; Hottinger, Hist. Or. 22, &c. After diligent examina- 
tion of these passages, and many more on the same topic, I may safely 
say that more really valuable exegesis may be found in a sentence or 
two of Steinthal, Urspr. d. Sprache. p. 23 ; Gesch. d. Sprachwissensch. 
p. 12, 15. 



A HUMAN DISCOVERY. U 

Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the 
air, and to every beast of the field^ (Gren. ii. 19,20). 
When we remember the invariable tendency of the 
Semitic intellect to overlook in every instance all secon- 
dary causes, and to attribute every result directly to the 
agency of superior beings, it is clear that by no possi- 
bility could the writer have given more unmistakeable 
expression to his view that language was the product of 
the human intelligence, and had no origin more divine 
than that which is divine in man. 

Nature with its infinity of sweet and varied sounds 
was ringing in the ears of primal man. * Heavens ! ' 
exclaims Herder, ' what a schoolroom of ideas and 
of speech ! Bring no Mercury or Apollo as a Deus ex 
machina from the clouds to earth. The whole many- 
sounding godlike nature is man's language-teacher and 
Muse. She leads all her creatures before him; each 
carries its name upon its tongue, and declares itself 
vassal and servant to this veiled yet visible god ! It 
delivers to him its markword into the book of his 
sovereignty, like a tribute, in order that he may by this 
name remember it, and in the future use and call it. 
I ask whether this truth, viz., that the understanding, 
whereby man is lord of nature, was the source of a 
living speech which he drew for himself from the sounds 
of creatures, as tokens whereby to distinguish them, — 
I ask whether this dry truth could in Oriental fashion 
be more nobly or beautifully expressed than by saying 
that Grod led the animals to him to see what he would 
name them, and the name that he would give them, 
that should be the name thereof? How, in Oriental 
poetic fashion, can it be more distinctly stated that man 
discovered speech for himself out of the tones of living 



12 ON LANGUAGE. ch. i. 

Nature, as a sign of his ruling intelligence ? and that 
is the point which I am proving.' ^ 

There are other meanings of the passage in G-enesis, 
full of profundity and moral value. This is not the 
place to dwell upon them, although they have almost 
universally been overlooked ; but what we ^nay at once 
conclude from the passage is this — that in this case, 
as in so many others, those who oppose science and try 
to sweep back with their petty human schemes of in- 
terpretation its mighty advancing tide, are usually as 
much at variance with the true meaning of Scripture, 
as they are in direct antagonism to reason and truth. 
' The expressions of Moses,' says one ^ whose orthodoxy 
none will call in question — the late Archbishop Sumner 
in his ' Eecords of Creation ' — ^ are evidently adapted 
to the first and familiar notions derived from the sen- 
sible appearances of the earth and heavens; and the 
absurdity of supposing that the literal interpretation 
of terms in Scripture ought to interfere ivith the 
advancevient of philosophical inquiry would have 
been as generally forgotten as renounced, if the op- 
pressors of Galileo had not found a place in history.' 

* Ahhandlung uher den TJrspr. d. Sprache. p. 77. Tliis is one of the 
most eloquent and delightful essays ever written. That Herder should 
have lived to retract it, and retrograde into the orthodox mysticism of 
Hamann is truly astonishing. He gave up his own invincible argu- 
ments to acquiesce in an opinion which had been contemptuously re- 
jected by Plato two thousand years before him, and which had even been 
refuted by a Father of the Church — Gregory of Nyssa — when it had 
been supported by Eunomius, the Arian Bishop of Cyzicus. 

2 Abp. Sumner, Eecords of Creation, i. 270. 



13 



CHAPTEE 11. 

THE EXPERIMENT OF PSAMMETICHUS. 

Kai icriovTL to iraidia ajxcpSrepa irpocnrlTTTOVTa BEK05 icpdoj/eov. 

Herod, ii. 2. 

Let us try for a moment to pass back in imagination to 
the dawn of humanity. Let us try to conceive — not as 
an idle exercise of the fancy, but in accordance with 
inductive observations and psychological facts — the 
processes by which the earliest human beings were led 
to invent designations for the immense and varied non- 
ego of the universe around them. 

The analogy between the childhood of our race and 
the childhood of every human being has been instinc- 
tively observed, and has been used for the purpose of 
linguistic experiments. Whether Frederic IL (of Grer- 
many) or James IV. (of Scotland) ^ ever shut up children 
in an island or elsewhere, with no attendants, or only 
such as were dumb, may not be certain; but after 
due deliberation, I strongly incline to accept as a fact 
the famous story which Herodotus received from the 
Egyptian priests, that a similar attempt to discover the 
original language was made by Psammetichus, king 

* See Origin of Lang. p. 9 and p. 14, where I have given some reasons 
for not rejecting the story about Psammetichus, as is done by Sir Gr. 
Wilkinson (Eawlinson's Herod, i, 251) on very insufficient grounds. 



14 ON LANGUAGE. ch. ii. 

of Egypt. I am not aware that a single valid argument 
has been adduced against its authenticity. Not only does 
the story carry with it, in its delicious naivete^ the air 
of truth, but also it is quite certain that a nation, so 
intoxicated with vanity on the subject of their tran- 
scendent age as the Egyptians were, would never have 
invented a story which unjustly canceded to the Phry- 
gians a precedence in antiquity. Accepting the story, 
therefore, we disagree from Professor Max Miiller^ in 
despising all such experiments, and, on the contrary, 
regard this fragment of practical philology as one of 
extreme value, and all the more valuable because, as 
he jtistly observes, all such experiments would now be 
* impossible, illegal, and unnatural.' For the stoiy, 
if it be true, establishes three most important conclu- 
sions, which are in themselves highly probable — viz., 
1. That children u'Oit^c? learn for themselves to exercise 
the faculty of speech ; 2. That the first things which 
the young Egyptian children named were animals ; and 
3. That they named the goats, the only animals with 
which they were familiar, hy an onomatopoeia ; for 
that Bekos, the word uttered by the children, is simply 
an imitation of the bleating of goats ^ is evident. It is 



^ Lectures, First Series, p. 333. He is so far riglit that the experiment 
■wotildbe inconclusive ; but why? because to make it Taluable we should 
require aw indefinite number of children and an indefinite length of time. 
But our assertion of the human origin and gradual discorery of language 
rests on quite other grounds. 

2 'Bekos' is (if we regard os as a mere Greek termination added by 
Herodotus) the exact and natural onomatopoeia for the bleat of a goat, 
as has been noticed by Enghsh children ; and it is in fact so used in the 
chorus of more than one popular song, and in the French becqueter. The 
fact that no suspicion of such an explanation of the sound occurred to 
Psammetichus, or any of those who heard the story, is an additional con- 
firmation of its truth. It is strange that no Greek was ingenious enough 



CH. II. THE EXPERIMENT OF PSAMMETICHUS. 15 

to us a strong internal evidence of the truthfulness of 
the story that it furnishes us with conclusions so exactly 
in accordance with those at which we arrive from a 
number of quite different data. The radii of inference 
from many other sources all converge to the common 
centre of a similar hypothesis. And be it observed that 
the facts, so far from being invented in confirmation of 
any such hypothesis, were interpreted by the Egyptian 
philosophers in a totally different, and indeed in a most. 
ludicrous manner. The confirmation ought to remain 
unsuspected, because it is wholly unintentional. 

(i.) As regards the first of these conclusions — that 
children left to themselves would evolve the rudiments 
of a language — Max Miiller says that it ' shows a want 
of appreciation of the bearings of the problem, if philo- 
sophers appeal to the fact that children are born without 
language, and gradually emerge from mutism to a full 
command of articulate speech. We want no. explanation 
how birds learn to fly, created as they are mth organs 
adapted to that purpose.' The illustration appears to 
be unfortunate in many respects, and wholly beside the 
mark. Every bird flies at once and instinctively when 
its organs are full-grown — the action is as instinctive to 
them as sucking is to every infant mammalian ; but the 
exercise of speech is an action infinitely complex, and 
innumerable accidents have proved that a single child 
growing up in savage loneliness would have no articu- 
late language. But is it by any means certain that this 
would be the case with a colony of infants, isolated and 
kept alive by some casualty which prevented them from 

to hit on this explanation, although they had the onomatopceias )8t7|, 
jStjo-o-w, fivxia, &c. Compare the French name for a goat bouc, Germ, 
hoc, Ital. becco, &c. 



16 ON LAl^GUAGE. ch. li. 

learning any existing dialect? The question cannot be 
answered with certainty, though it seems probable that 
as our knowledge advances we may be able to affirm 
that such must and would be the case. It is a well- 
known fact that the neglected children in some of the 
Canadip.n and Indian villages,^ who are often left alone 
for days, can and do invent for themselves a sort of 
lingua franca, partially or wholly unintelligible to all 
except themselves. And if it be objected to this illus- 
tration that these children have already heard articulate 
speech, which, on the theory of a human invention of 
language, would not have been the case with the earliest 
men, we again appeal to the acknowledged fact that 
deaf-mutes have an instinctive power to develope for 
themselves a language of signs — a power which con- 
tinues in them until they have been taught some artifi- 
ficial system, and which then only ceases because it is 
useful no longer ; — ^just as in the animal kingdom an 
organ decays, and becomes rudimentary when its exer- 
cise ceases to be of any importance to the possessor. 

(ii.) Our second observation from the story of Herodo- 
tus was that the first things which the children named 
were animals ; and this too is precisely in accordance 
with every-day facts. Even a young infant learns very 
soon to distinguish practically between the animate and 
the inanimate creation ; and few things excite its asto- 
nishment and pleasure more than the various animals 
around it. Careful observation of the progress of children 
in the power of using speech will soon convince any one 
that they learn to name the dog, the cow, the sheep, 
and the horse among their earliest words, and indeed 

1 Mr. E. Moffat testifies to a similar phenomenon in the villages of 
S. Africa, Mission. Travels. 



CH. II. THE EXPERIMENT OF PSAMMETICHUS. 17 

soon after they have learnt to attach significance to 
those natural sounds by which all nations express the 
relationships of father ^ and mother. Thus, in repre- 
senting the animals as the first existing things which 
received their names from the earliest man, the Jehovist 
of the Book of Grenesis wrote with a profound insight 
into the nature of language and the germs out of which 
it is instinctively developed. 

(iii.) But, thirdly, from the fact that the only sound 
used by the Egyptian children was an imitation of the 
sounds made by the only living things with which they 
were familiar, we saw another indication of the fact 
that onomatopoeia (which is only a form of the many 
imitative^ tendencies which characterize the highest 
animals) is the most natural and fruitful source out of 
which the faculty of speech was instinctively evolved ; — 
the first stepping-stone in the stream which separates 
sound from sense, matter from intelligence, thought 
from speech ; — the keystone of that mighty bridge which 
divides the hvvaiJLLs from the spyov, the faculty from the 
fact. In this point also our inference is curiously con- 
firmed by a variety of observed phenomena. 

What, for instance, are the names by which, in the 
present day, children first learn to distinguish animals ? 
Are they not invariably onoTnatopoetic ? ^ Is any one 
acquainted with any child, ordinarily trained, which 
first learned to call a dog, a cow, or a sheep by their 
names, without having learnt, by means of the nursery 

. *' See Buschman, Ueber d. Naturlaut. 

2 The cause of this particular development of the imitative instinct 
will be explained hereafter. 

^ A horse does jvot frequently neigh; and this is probably the reason 
that in so many dialects the childish onomatopoeia for it is derived, not 

C 



18 ON LAJN-GUAGE. ch. ii. 

onomatopoeias, that a sound may stand for a thing ? 
This is the most diiBficult lesson of all language ; and 
when, by the use of a few words, the child has once 
learnt it, — when it has once succeeded in catching this 
elementary conception, — the rest follows with astonishing 
rapidity. Hence, very few onomatopoeias, and these 
borrowed from the commonest and simplest objects, are 
sufficient for the purpose. What the child has to learn 
is, that a modification of the ambient medium by a 
motion of the tongue can be accepted as a representation 
of the objects which are mirrored upon his retina — in 
other words, that the objects of sight may be recalled 
and identified by articulated sounds. But how is he to 
learn this marvellous lesson ? Only by observing in- 
stinctively that since certain things give forth certain 
sounds, the repetition of the sound, by an inevitable 
working of the law of association, recalls the object 
which emits it. Nor is it the slightest objection to this 
to say that the child does not learn the onomatopoeia 
for itself, but learns it from its nurse. Supposing that 



from the sound it makes, but from the sounds (Lautgeberden) addressed 
to it, e. g. in English gee-gee ; in parts of G-ermany, on the other hand, 
Iwtte-pdrd ; in Finland humma, &c. See Wedgwood, Etym. Bid. s. v. 
Hobby, ii. 246. (That horse is itself an onomatopoeia seems probable 
from the cognate form hross, Germ. Boss.) The fact, then, that a young 
child names a horse from the sounds used in urging horses on, only 
shows how widely various are the points which may suggest the onoraa- 
topoetic designation. Similarly in Spain a mule-driver is called arriero 
from his cry arri, and in the French argot an omnibus is aie aie. The 
•whole observation illustrates the active, Hving power of speech, which is 
no mere dead matter that can be handed over from father to son. See 
Heyse, 8yst. d. Sprachwissenschaft, § 47. Even a watch is to a child in- 
variably a tick-tick, and the very same onomatopoeia is used in the Lingua 
Franca of Vancouver's island, and in which we also find *hehe,' * liplip/ 
'tarn- water,' &c. for 'laugh,' 'boil,' 'cataract,' &c. 



CH. II. THE EXPERIMENT OF PSAMMETICHUS. 19 

we grant this, what does it prove? Simply the fact 
that every nurse and every mother is guided by the 
swift, beautiful, and unerring beneficence of instinct to 
follow the very same process which the great mother, 
Nature, adopted when man was her infant child ;— or let 
us say, in language more reverent, and not less true, 
that such a process is in instinctive unconscious accord- 
dance with the great method of the Creator. For the 
whole idea of language,--the conception that those 
impressions which the brain mainly receives through 
the sense of sight may be combined and expressed by 
means of the sense of hearing, influenced through the 
organs of sound,— the discovery, in fact, of a common 
principle, by virtue of which unity and coherence may 
be given to every external impression,— all lies in the 
discovery, by a child, that a rude ideal imitation of the 
bark of a dog may serve as a sign or mark for the dog 
itself. Hence, although Professor Max MiiUer's desig- 
nation of the onomatopoetic theory of language as the 
' 'bow-wow theory,' ^ was accepted by all flippant minds 
J as a piece of crushing and convincing wit, it is really 
1 nothing but an undignified way of expressing that which 
(is, as we shall see by his own admission, a great 
[linguistic probability, and which at any rate deserves 
respectful consideration because it has been deliberately 
laccepted by some of the gi-eatest thinkers and the 
:greatest philologists of the century. 
' Plutarch tells us the commonly-accepted Egyptian 
legend that Thoth was the first inventor of language; 

■ » We are glad to find an expression of half-regret for this unfortunate 
,fcermm later editions of Prof. MiiUer's lectures; to abandon it finaUy 

should be but a graceful concession to the many eminent men who have 

aeid the view. 



c 2 



20 ON LANGUAGE. ch. ii. 

and he adds tlie curious tradition that, previous to his 
time, men had no other mode of expression than the 
cries of animals. That such may well have been the 
case is illustrated by the fact that it has been found 
to be so among wild children lost in the woods and there 
caught long afterwards. Thus we are told of Clemens, 
one of the wild boys received in the asylum at Over- 
dyke (an asylum rendered necessary by the number of 
children left destitute and uncared for in Grermany after 
Napoleon's desolating wars), that 'his knowledge of 
birds and their habits .was extraordinary,' and that ' to 
every bird he had given a distinctive and often very 
appropriate name of his own, which they appeared to 
recognise as he whistled after them ; ' ^ a sentence which 
can only mean that his onomatopoeias were of the most 
objective or simply-imitative kind. Here, then, in his- 
torical times, is a surprising, unquestionable, and most 
unexpected confirmation of the inferences which we felt 
ourselves entitled to draw from the story of Psammeti- 
chus. Without dwelling on the arguments adduced in a 
previous ^ work, or attaching too much importance to 
the fact that the aborigines of Malacca ' lisp their words, 
the sound of which is like the noise of birds,' or that the 
vocabulary of the Yamparicos is * like the growling of a 
dog, eked out by a copious vocabulary of signs,' we may 
find a very strong indication of the reasonableness of 



' Se9 an interesting paper on Wild Men and Beast Children, by Mr. 
E. Burnet Tylor, Anthropol. Eev. i. p. 22 ; and Ladevi-Eoche, De V Orig. 
du Lang. p. 55. H — t. Hist, d'une jeune Fille sauvage, Paris, 1775. 
Tulpius, Obs. Med. p. 298. Camerarius, Hor. Suhsec. Cent. 1. Francf. 1602. 
Diet, des Merveilles de la Nature, § v. Sauvage. Virey, Hist, du Genre 
Hum. i. 88 and ad f. &e. 

2 Origin of Lang. p. 75 seqq. 



CH. II. THE EXPEKIMENT OF PSAMMETICHUS. 21 

our belief in the certainty that the more savage (i. e. the 
more natural and primitive) any language is, the more 
invariably does it abound in onomatopoeias, and the 
more certain we are to find that the large majority of 
animals has an onomatopoetic designation. 



22 ON LANGUAGE. ch. hi. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE NAMING OF ANIMALS. 

Tingere . . . Grsecis magis coneessuin est, qui sonis etiam qiubusdam et 
affectibus non dubitaverunt nomina aptare ; non alia libertate, guam qua 
illi frimi homines rebus appellationes dederunt/ 

QuiNCTiLiAN, Instt Or. Tiii. 3. 

Evert fact wMcL. as yet we have passed in review 
would lead us to the conclusion that the first men, in 
-first exercising the faculty of speech, gave names to the 
animals around them, and that those names were ono- 
matopoetic.^ It is hardly too much to say that they 
could not have been othenuise. For unless we agree 
with the ancient Analogists, and see a divine and mys- 
terious connection, a natural and inexplicable harmony 
between words and things, by virtue of which each word 
necessarily expresses the inmost nature of the thing 
which it designates ; or unless we are Anomalists, and 
attribute the connection of words with things to the 
purest accident, and the most haphazard and arbitrary 
conventions ; — unless we declare ourselves unreservedly 

* The word * onomatopceia ' is now universally understood to mean a 
word invented on tbe basis of a sound-imitation. It may be worth, a 
passing notice that Campbell's use of it in his Ehetoric (ii. 194), to 
signify the transformation of a name into a word, as when we call a rich 
man a Crcesus, or as in the line ' Sternhold himself shall be out-Stern- 
holded^ — is, so far as we are aware, wholly unauthorised. 



CH. iir. THE NAMING OF ANIMALS. 23 

the champions of one or other of these equally exploded 
views, or accept in their place some mystical or inex- 
plicable theory of * roots,' we must be prepared with 
some other explanation which shall exclude from lan- 
guage alike the miraculous and the accidental. What 
this explanation is will appear hereafter ; but at present 
we may say that, having disproved the revelation of 
language, we cannot suppose its development possible 
without S07ne connection between sounds and objects. ^ ^ I 
Now, as we have seen already, no connection is so easy 
and obvious, so self-suggesting and so absolutely satis- 
factory, as the acceptation of a sound to represent a 
sound, which in its turn at once recalls the creature by 
which the sound is uttered. If we consider the natural 
instinct ^ which leads to the reproduction of sounds, the 
brute imitations of wild-men and savage children, the 
onomatopoetic stepping-stones to speech adopted by all 
children, and the a priori presumption just explained, 
little or no doubt upon this point can remain in any 
candid mind. 

But we can go yet further by examining the actual 
nomenclature of animals in existing languages. 

If we consider any number of names for animals in 

any modern language, we shall find that they fall into 

, various classes, viz. : 1. Those for which no certain 

, derivation can be suggested; 2. Those derived from 

1 

^ This imitativeness (in wliich lies the tendency to onomatopceia) is 

found even in animals. I once possessed a young canary which never 

' sang until it had heard a child's squeaking doll. It immediately caught up 

^ and imitated this sound, which it never afterwards lost. It is well-known 

" that nest-birds, if hatched by a bird of another species, will reproduce, 

•" or attempt to reproduce, its notes. There are good reasons for believing 

(since wild dogs do not bark) that the bark of the domestic dog is the 

result of hearing the human voice. See Eev. des deux Mondes, Feb. 1861. 



24 OX LANGUAGE. ch. tit. 

some analogy, or characteristic, or combination of cha- 
racteristics which the animal presents ; 3. Those which 
are distinctly onomatopoetic in origin or in form. 

The first class of words cannot of course furnish us 
with any linguistic inferences^ and may here be left out 
of the question ; ^ under the second and third classes fall 
all names of recent origin ; and if, as the Bible asserts, 
and as has been shoivn to be indejpendently ^probable, 
anhnals luere the first objects to receive names, they 
MUST have received names belonging to the third 
class {viz. : onoviatopoeias), because no previous words 
woidd have existed wherewith to designate or combine 
their observed qualities. 

But the imitative origin of animal names is not only 
a priori most probable, but reasoning d posteriori w^e 
see it to be generally the fact. If we would discover 
any analogies for the speech of primitive man, we must 
look for them in the languages of those savage nations 
who approach most nearly to the condition in which 
man must have appeared upon the earth. Yet if we 
examine the vocabulary of almost any savage nation for 
this purpose, what are we certain to discover ? That 
almost every name for an animcd is a striking and 
obvious onomatopoeia. 

Take, for instance, the following names of some of 
the few birds and animals found in Australia : — 
Ke-a-ra-pai. The white cockatoo. 
Wal-la. The black cockatoo. ^ 
Ka-rong-ha-rong. A pelican. 

* We assume, however, that every word has a reasonable derivation 
if we only knew what it was ; just as we know that no place in the world 
ever received a name which coidd not be accounted for, though there are 
hundreds of such names of which we can noiv give no explanation. 




THE NAMIJS'G OF ANIMALS. 25 

Ki-ra-ki-ra. The cock king-parrot. 
Kun-ne-ta. The hen king-parrot. 
Mo-a-ne. The kangaroo. 
Nga-u-ivo. The seagull. 

These are chosen almost at random from * Threlkeld's 
Australian Grrammar,' and in other cases the author 
himself calls marked attention to the similar origin of 
others, as follows : — 

" Kong-ko-rong. The emu, fro'in the noise it makes,'^ 

p. 87. 
" Pip-pi4a.^ A small hawk, so called from its cry,^^ 

p. 91. 
" Kong-kung. Frogs, so called from the noise they 

make.''^ p. 87. 
'^ Kun-buL The black swan, from its note.^^ p. 87. 

Or again, let us take some specimens from a North 
American ^ dialect — the Algonquin. Shi-sheeb, duck ; 
Chee-chish-koo-ivan,kos-kos-koo-oo, owl; oo-oo-me-see, 
screech-owl; miai-mai, redcrested woodpecker; jpau- 
pau-say, common woodpecker; shi-shi-giua, rattle- 
snake; pah-pah-ah-qwau, cock.^ 

In Chinese, too, a language which is generally believed 
to retain more of the characteristics of primitive speech 
than any other, ' the number of imitative sounds is very 
considerable.' A few may be seen quoted by Professor 

* Compare tlie English name Pipjpit ; the Latin Pijpilare, &e. 

^ The highly euphonic character of the New Zealand language renders 
it unsuitable for illustrating the point before us ; otherwise one can 
hardly avoid seeing onomatopoeias in Ti-oi-oi, AJci-aki, AJcoa-akoa, the 
names of different birds, Pipipi, the turkey, &c. See the Ch. Miss. Soc.^s 
New Zealand Gram. Lond. 1820. 

3 I have borrowed these Algonquin words from a suggestive chapter 
in Dr. Daniel Wilson's Prehistoric Man, i. 74. 



25 ON LANGUAGE. ch. iit. 

Miiller in the first series of his Lectures (p. 252) ; but 
in point of fact they constitute a whole class. The 
sixth class of Chinese characters is called Hyai-Shing 
' meaning and sound.' " These," says Marshman,^ in his 
Chinese G-rammar, " are formed by adding to a character 
which denotes the genus, another tuJiich denotes the 
imagined sound of the species, or the individual sig- 
nified. They adduce by way of example kyang, which, 
by adding to shooi water, the character kong, forms 
a character which denotes a rapid stream, from an allu- 
sion to the sound of its water when rushing down with 
violence. And also ho, the generic name of rivers, 
which is formed by adding to shooi, water, ho the sup- 
posed sound of a river in its course." These, with the 
signs Chwan-chyn, are about 3,000 in number. 

Savage languages are, as we have already observed, 
the best to show us what must have been the primitive 
procedure ; but we can trace the same necessary ele- 
ments of words in languages far more advanced. In 
Sanskrit, for instance, is not go, the original of our cow ^ 
(Grerm. kuh ; comp. the words hos, ^ovs, /Sodco, yodco), 
a direct imitation of the sound which the English 
child imitates by moo (comp. mugire) ? Is not bukka a 
goat (comp. hukkana barking, bukhara the lion's roar, 
^ucro-ftj, ^vKTys, bucca, buccina, buck, butt) a very 
obvious onomatopoeia ? Is not gukara ^ a pig (cf. crvs, 
sus, Irish suig, Welsh Much, Eussian cushka) as trans- 
parently onomatopoetic as krakara a partridge, hi'fikara a 

* Marsliinan, Chinese Gram. p. 24. It must be admitted that Ms ex- 
planation is not particularly lucid. 

2 Go, in Sanscrit, also means a voice ; almost all the derivatives from it 
adduced by Pictet are evident onomatopoeias. Even in Chinese the animal 
is called ngovj, gu, &c, 

2 These -words mean the animal which makes the sound 9U, kra, hin. 



CH. III. THE NAMING OF ANIMALS. 27 

tiger ? Can we see any other origin for Qvdna, bhashalca, 
and Tudatha, names for the dog, from kvan to sound, 
hhash to bark, and rud to cry? In hahsa a goose 
(Lithuan. ^Zdsis, Thibet, ngangba), and in the Persian 
gigranah, a crane, the same principle is indubitably at 
work, and in all these instances the onomatopoeia, as it 
is indeed incontestihle, is frankly admitted by M. 
Pictet,^ the highest of authorities in everything which 
concerns the primitive Aryans, although he never 
admits such an explanation unless it is absolutely neces- 
sitated by the facts. Yet in the following cases also, 
where the Sanskrit root runs through the whole Aryan 
family of languages, he cannot avoid referring the names 
to simple imitation ; nor can any candid reader avoid 
agreeing with him as a glance will show. 

Bheda. Eam ; compare the Danish beede, &c. 
Vatsa. Calf; from vad and sar, giving a voice, i. e, 

lowing. 
Menada. He-goat, ' dont le cri est me ' (cf. jjbrjKas 

and the Phrygian fia a sheep). 
Makshiha. Fly ; from map, to sound (musso). 
Bha, Bhramara (cf. (^pi^dw, fremo, &c.). The bee. 
Bambhara (cf. pofju^os, &c.). The bee ; like our 

childish word bumble-bee. 
Indindira. Grreat bee (cf. rtOpijvrj). 
Druna (probablement aussi une onomatopee). A 

drone. 

^ See Pictet, Les Origines Indo-Europeennes, ou les Aryas Primitifs, 
i. pp. 330-535. We should certainly feel inclined to add many other 
words (e. g. s4rispra, serpent, &c.), in spite of the often-strained and 
unlikely derivations suggested for them. If they were not originally 
onomatopoeias, they have at least become so ; and instances of this reflex 
tendency are hardly less important, as throwing light upon our in- 
quiries, than names indubitably imitative in their origin. 



28 ON LANGUAGE. ch. hi. 

Katurava. Frog (cri rauque) ; and Bheka, frog ; 

' sans doTite nne onomatopee.' 
BUruka (root bhr, cf. Pers. Ur, thunder). A bear. 
Kurara and Kharagabda, Eagle. 
Kuhkida. A cock. 
Grdhra, Vulture. 

Krdgha (Pers.). Hawk (cf. karaghah, crow). 
Krkavdku. Fowl in general ; from krka, and vap, 

to sound. 
JJMha, dlu, ghuka, gharghara, &c. Owls of different 

kinds. 
Karaka. Crow. Kaka (cf. chough, &c.), ' evidem- 

ment une pure onomatopee.' 
Kuk'ijbka. Cuckoo. 

Koka. Swan ; ^ imitatif du cri kouk ! kouk ! ' 
Karatu. Crane. 
Tittiri. Partridge. 
Yarvaka. Quail. 
Fika, Woodpecker ; ' cette racine n'est sans doute 

qu'une onomatopee.' 

The list might be indefinitely multiplied ; but let us 
now turn to the Hebrew, and see what analogous facts 
it offers. For the sake of English readers we will 
represent the Hebrew words in English characters also, 
that they may judge for themselves. Take, for instance, 
such distinctive imitative words as — 

^p'^p'W. Scherakreka, A pye; the Grreek Kapaxa^a. 

Bochart, Hieroz. ii. p. 298. 
"ITIT Zarzir. A starling. Id, p. 353. 
fiD^at?^ SchejpMjphoun, The horned snake. G-esen. 

Thes. iii. p. 146. 



CH. III. THE KAMING OF ANIMALS. 29 

n.^'l^i Aryeh. The lion. The supposed derivations are 

very doubtful. 
D^^X lyhn. Lynxes. Nomen ovofiaroiroi'qTLicov. Boch- 

art. Id, i. 845. 
"i-lli Gut. a whelp. 
7n^ ShdcJial. The roarer. From an Arabic root = 

rugitus. 
ns'^pn Dukiphath. Lapwing (rather Hoopoe, cf. Copt. 

kukupha); Lat. Upupa.^ Bochart, Hieroz. ii. p. 347. 
a''!V TzUm. Wild cats, &c. 
55*1? Labhia. A lioness ; ' rugiendi sonum imitans.' 

Gresen. Thes. s. v. 
D^p Sis. A swallow ; compare Ital. zizilla, Lat. zinzu- 

lare, &c. Bochart, Hieroz. vol. ii. p. 62. 
Yin Tor. A turtle-dove (turtur, &c.). 
H*^^ Tsildtzdl. A locust, from its shrill noise. 

Again, if we take the ancient Eg3rptian language ^ we 
find such words as onouee, a lion ; hippep, an ibis ; ehe, a 
cow ; hepepep, hoopoe ; ctooi\ frog ; tuot, pig ; chaoo, 
cat ; phin, mouse. 

We see then that, alike in the Semitic and in the 
Aryan families, onomatopoeia supplies a certain and 
satisfactory etymology for the names of many animals ; 
and if we add doubtful cases, where the suggested deri- 
vations are awkward and farfetched, we might say, 
without exaggeration, of most animals. We have seen 
similar onomatopoeias in the ancient Egyptian, which is 
supposed to have affinities with both ; and we have 
found them immensely prevalent in various sporadic 

* Hence, the Greek legend about its cry, — tliat it was the transformed 
Tereus crpng Uov, irov. 
' Prehistoric Man, i. 71. 



30 ON LANGUAGE. ck. hi. 

families," which some would call Turanian — a name 
which we may on some future occasion see very good 
reason to reject. In fact, in these Allophylian savage 
dialects, and the more so in proportion to the primitive 
character of the people who speak them, onomatopoeia 
appears to be the rule, and terms derived from other 
relations or properties the rare exception. Without 
going any further, is it possible to doubt what Tnust 
have been the tendency of animal nomenclature among 
the earliest men ? 

It has often happened in modern times that the 
extension of travel and commerce has thrown nations 
into connection with lands in which the flora and fauna 
are wholly different from their own. The instinctive 
procedure which they adopt to name these new objects 
will add new strength to our position. For here again one 
ofthese four processes takes place; either 1. They adopt 
the existing or aboriginal term, which they find already 
in use ; or 2. They use a compound, expressive of 
some quality or resemblance, as in cat-bird, snow-bird, 
mocking-bird, blue-bird, &c ; 3. They misapply some 
previous name of the animal most nearly resembling 
the one to be named ; or 4. If they invent a new and 
original (indecomposible) term, it is invariably an 
onomatopoeia. 

1. The first procedure requires no illustration, as it 
offers nothing curious or instructive beyond the fact 
that the shorter and easier a native name is, the more 
readily is it adopted. The only reason why this practice 
is not more common is the inordinate length of the 
delicate imitative appellations in primitive languages. 

2. The second process is not so common, and is only 
interesting as illustrating the variety of observed charac- 



CH. III. THE NAMIKG OF ANIMALS. 31 

teristics by which a name may be suggested. For 
instance, the elephant has been called by names meaning 
' the twice-drinking animal (dvipa), or the two-tusked 
(^dvirada), or the creature that uses its hand (Jiastin) ; 
yet these different conceptions all represent one and 
the same object. Similarly the serpent is called in 
Sanskrit by names meaning ^ going on the breast/ ^ or 
^ wind-eating.' Pictet furnishes us with many similar 
instances of this method of nomenclature, which is illus- 
trated by the name duck-billed platypus, or ^ beast with 
a bill,' for the ornithorhynchus of New Zealand, and the 
Dutch aardvark, or ' earth-pig,' for the Orycteropus 
capensis. * Of everything in nature,' says Bopp, ^ of 
every animal, of every plant, speech can seize only one 
property to express the whole by it.' 

3. The third process deserves passing notice, because 
we shall see hereafter its importance. 'In the slow 
migrations of the human family,' says Dr. Daniel 
Wilson, ' from its great central hives, language imper- 
ceptibly adapted itself to the novel requirements of 
man. But with the discovery of America a new era 
began in the history of migration. ... In its novel scenes 
language was at fault. It seemed as if language had its 
work to do anew as when first framed amid the life of 
Eden. The same has been the experience of every new 
band of invading colonists, and it can scarce fail to strike 
the European naturalist, on his first arrival in the New 
World, that its English settlers, after occupying the 
continent for upwards of three centuries, instead of 

^ Les Orig. Indo-Eur. i. 383. It is perhaps more common in the 
Zincali language than any other. Biondelli Studii Linguistici, p. 114, 
and in many argots, e. g. in the Grerman Eothwelsch, goose is Plattfusz, 
hare = Langfusz, ass = Langohr, &c. — Id. 113. 



32 ON LANGUAGE. ch. hi. 

inventing root-words wherewith to designate plants and 
animals, as new to them as the nameless living creatures 
were to Adam in Paradise, apply in an irregular and 
unscientific manner the names of British and European 
flora and fauna. Thus the name of the English part- 
ridge is applied to one American tetranoid (Tetrao 
umbellus), the pheasant to another (Tetrao cupido) ; and 
that of our familiar British warbler, the robin, to 
the Turdus migratorius, or totally different American ^ 
thrush.' 

Mr. E. J. Ejrre remarks that when an Australian sees 
any object unknown to him, he does not invent a name 
for it, but immediately gives it a name drawn from its 
resemblance to some known object. This is very true, 
but it is strange that he should have considered it as 
peculiar to Australians.^ On the contrary, the fact has 
been observed from the earliest times, and is noticed by 
authors so ancient as Epicurus,^ Aristotle,^ and Varro. 
The latter^ observes that in Latin the names of fish are 
usually borrowed from the land creatures which most 
resemble them, as anguilla (eel) from anguis (snake). 
Several similar instances occur among the Eomans. 
The elephant, for instance, they called the Lucanian ox, 

^ Prehistoric Man, i. 62. 

2 'Der Menscli stellt bestandig Vergleichungen an zwischen dem 
Neuen was ihm vorkommt, mit Alten was er schon kennt.' — Pott. 
Etym. Forsch. ii. 139. 

' "Odev KoL Trepl riav ciStjAcoj/ hrh twu (paivoixeuwv XP^ ar)ix^LovcrQat. — Epic, 
ap. Diog. Laert. x. 32. 

■* ^{xriKa. i, 1. 

* ' Vocabula piscium pleraque translata a terrestribus ex aliqua parte 
similibiis rebus, ut anguilla.' — Varro, De Ling. Lat. v. 77. (Comp. 
e^is, e7xeA.os). Compare Amos ix. 3, where ' snake ' is used for a sea- 
creature. By a very natural transference anguilla in later Latin means 
a thong for pimishing boys — the Scotch ' tawse.' — Du Cange. s. v. 



CH. III. THE NAMING OF ANIMALS. 33 

not being at first familiar with its name, and knowing 
of no animal larger ^ than the ox ; the giraffe they styled 
camelopardus, from its points of resemblance to the 
camel and the leopard, and ovis fera ^ (or foreign sheep), 
from the mildness of its disposition ; and they knew the 
black lion by the synonym of * Libyan bear.' The 
Dakotas, we are told, call the horse sungka-wakang,^ or 
spirit-dog; and Mr. Darwin'^ tells us that in 1817, 'as 
soon as a horse reached the shore, the whole population 
took to flight, and tried to hide themselves from '* the 
man-carrying pig^^ as they christened it.' Some 
American nations call the lion ' the great ^ and mischiev- 
ous cat.' In the Fiji Islands man's flesh is known as 
' long pig.' When first they saw a white paper kite ^ th ey 
called it ' manumanu^ (a bird), having never seen such 
a thing before ; aad money from the same cause they 
called ^ ai Lavo,'' from its resemblance to the flat round 
seeds of the Mimosa scandens. The Dutch coald find 
no better name than Bosjesbok, hush-goat, for the grace- 
ful African antelope ; and in the Spanish name alligator 
we see that they regarded that unknown river-monster 
as a large lizard."^ The New Zealanders called the first 
horses they saw * large dogs,' as the Highlanders are 
said to have called the first donkey which they brought 
to their mountains ' a large hare.' The Kaffirs called 

^ It is very doulDtful whether in some Aryan languages there has not 
been a confusion between the names for elejphant and camel. See Pictet 
s. V. Le Ckameau. 

2 See Plin. viii. 17. Fera=peregrina. 

3 Prekist. Man, i, 72. 

* Voyage of the Beagle, p. 408. 

1 * Michaelis, De V Influence des Opinions sicr le Langage. 

* Seeman, Mission to Viti, pp. 45, 377. 

'' El lagarto, the lizard. See Farrar, Origin of Lang. p. 119. 

D 



34 ON LANGUAGE. CH. in. 

the first parasol' to which they were introduced 'a 
cloud' To this day the Malays have no better name 
for rat than^ ' large mouse.' This, then, is an important 
principle to notice in all theories respecting language. 

4 If however, none of these processes furnish a con- 
venient' name for animals hitherto unfamiliar to new 
colonists,-if the native name be too uncouth or difficult 
for adoption, and the animal offer neither a ready 
analogy, nor any very salient property, to provide itself 
with a new title,-then a new name must be invented ; 
and in this case we venture to assert that there is not 
to be found in any country a single instance of a name 
so invented which is not an onomatopma. buch 
names as whip-poor-will, ^ee-y,hee{Muscicapa rapax), 
towhee {Embcriza erythroptera), kittawake {La^'ns 
tridactylus), &c., may be profusely paralleled; and in 
some cases the onomatopoetic instinct is so strong that 
it asserts itself side by side with the adoption of a name ; 
thus (as in the childish words moo-cow, bumble-bee) 
the North American Indian will speak of a gun as an 
Ut-to-tah-gau, or a Paush-ske-zi-gnn. It has often 
been asserted that man has lost the power of inventing 
language, and this present inability is urged as a ground 
for believing that language could not have been a 
human invention. We have elsewhere^ given reasons 
for disputing the assertion, and even if it were true, it 
would be beside the mark, seeing that the absence oi 
all necessity of exercise for a faculty is the certain cause 
of its all-but-irretrievable decay. From the fact, how- 

. Charma, Or. du Lang. p. 277, who refers to Condinac, Gram. ct. t. 

2 Crawfurd, Malay Gram. i. 68. „ . a j„ 

3 Origin Of Lang.v^^s^^. A very few instances of invented words, 

with some remarks upon them, may be found, Id. pp. 60, 61. 



/B .?,.. 



l^o4 .^^^^^^iM^^^^"^^^^^ -^'^^^^^ 



CH. III. THE NAMING OF ANIMALS. 35 

ever, tbat when men do invent new words they are 
almost invariably onomatopoeias, we see an index 
pointing us hack with unerring certainty to the only 
possible origin of articulate speech. For whatever 
may be true of abstract ' roots,' it is demonstrable, and 
will be shown hereafter, that roots which by their 
onomatopoetic power are the only ones capable of 
explaining and justifying themselves, so far from being 
the sterile playthings which Professor M, Midler repre- 
sents them to be, have in them a fertility and a power 
of growth which can only be represented by the analogy 
of vegetable life, and which is as sufficient to account 
for the fullgrown languages of even the Aryan family as 
the germinative properties of an acorn are sufficient to 
account for the stateliest oak that ever waved its arms 
over British soil. 

The history of colonisation, then, by reproducing 
some of the conditions of primitive man, enables us to 
see his linguistic instincts in actual operation, and 
those instincts undeniably confirm our theory by dis- 
playing themselves in the very directions which we have 
been pointing out. But we can offer yet another proof 
of the reasonableness of our view in certain languages 
of modern invention, to which we shall again allude. I 
mean the variaus Argots of the dangerous classes 
throughout Europe. These languages have to fulfil 
the opposite conditions of being distinct to those who 
use them, and unintelligible to the rest of the world. 
■ And how do they effect this ? Partly indeed by gene- 
ralising the special, and specialising the general; partly 
by seizing on some one very distinct attribute and 
1; describing it, if necessary, by periphrases ; but also in 
great measure by the obvious resource of direct sound- 

D 2 



3g ON LANGUAGE. ch. hi. 

imitation. Thus the German thief, no less than the 
Eno-iish, calls a watch a tick, the French thief calls it 
tocluante-, the Italian thief speaks of a pig as grug- 
nante, the German as grunnicM, the English 'the 
grunting,' the French as grondin, &c. These languages 
must, f mm their very nature, remain uncultivated, and 
the consequence is that they abound in onomatopoeia. 
In the English slang, a pulpit is a hum-hox', carriages 
and horses are rattlers and prads. In the French 
argot the heart is hattant; a sheep is helant; a 
...rimace is bobine; a marionette is bouis-bouis ; to die 
^ claquer; a liar is craquelin; to drink a health is 
.eric-croc, a skeleton-key is frou-frou; a glutton is 
licheur; a shoe is paffc, a soldier, by an onomatopcsia 
which it would take too long to explain, is Jp^ou-plou ; 
a little chimney-sweeper is raclette-, a cab is roulant; 
a dog tambour ; a noisjcUU tarabate; and gendarmes, 
from the songs which soldiers like, is called tourlouru. 
These are but a few instances out of many, and it is 
impossible to deny that they establish the necessity of 
havino- recourse to onomatopcsia when new words have 
to be invented. They therefore furnish a fresh support 
to the views here advocated. 

When by strict etymological laws we have traced back 
a word through all its various changes, instructive and 
valuable as the process is sure to have been, we have 
done nothing to explain its origin or to account for its 
earliest history, unless we can point to its ultimate germ 
in some onomatopoetic or interjectional root; and per- 
haps in the majority of cases this can be done with a fair 
..mount of probability; for the number of roots required 
for the formation of a language is extremely small ; and 
that small number is amply supplied by the imitation 



CH. III. THE NAMING OF ANIMALS. 37 

of natural sounds, and by the instinctive utterances 
which all violent impressions produce alike in animals 
and in men. The reason why new words, except of an 
imitative kind, are not invented is because every word 
involves a long history from its sensational origin to its 
final meaning, and the result without the process is felt 
to be a contradiction and an impossibility. This is why 
all attempts to frame an artificial language have been 
a failure, and the ponderous schemes of Kircher, and 
Becker ^ and Dalgarno, and Wilkins, and Faignet, and 
Letellier can only move us to a smile, because they are 
based on a conventional theory of language which is 
utterly mistaken. This, too, is the reason why lan- 
guage is stronger than emperors, and Tiberius^ could 
neither give the citizenship to a word, nor Claudius ^ 
procure acceptance even for a useful letter. A radically 
new word to have any chance of obtaining currency 
must of necessity be of an imitative character. It is a 
curious fact that some of the tribes* on the coast of 
New Gruinea derive even the names which they give to 
their children from direct imitations of the first sounds 
or cries which they utter. 

We are surely entitled then to draw secure inferences 
from the facts hitherto observed, and those inferences 

* For an account of their systems see Du Ponceau, Mem. sur le 
Syst. Gram, de quelques Nations Indiennes, pp. 26-31, 320. Hallam, 
Lit. Eur. iii. 362 ; and Letellier, Etablissement immediat de la Langiie 
Universelle. 

2 ' Tu enim Csesar civitatem potes dare hominibus, verbis non potes,' 
said Capito to Tiberius. — Sueton. De Illustr. Gram. 

^ Claudius vainly tried to introduce into the Roman alphabet an 
antisigma X, with the value Ps. 'pro qua Claudius Caesar An tisigma IX 
hac figura scribi voluit, sed nulli ausi sunt antiquam scripturam mutare. 
— Priscian, i. De Literarum Numero et Affinitate. 

* Salverte, Hist, of Names, i. 62. Engl. Transl. 



38 OX LANGUAGE. ch. hi. 

may be summed up in the observation that animals 
were among the first objects to receive names, and that, 
in the absence of any previous words, they could not 
have been named except by onomatopoetic designations. 
This we have endeavoured to render strong and secure 
by many proofs, drawn both a priori from the nature 
of the case, and from the analogies presented by the 
methods in use among children and among savages; 
and a posteriori from the phenomena which have 
invariably recurred when, in the course of history, a 
condition of circumstances has been reproduced which 
in any way resembles that which must have existed in 
the case of primal man. 



39 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 



^Hv XP<5''os 8t' ^v &TaKros avdpdoircav fiios, 
Kal 0rjpic657js, t(r%uos 0' inTrjperris. 

TrjvLKavrd jxoi Soreet 
TivKvos Tis &Wos Kal cro^hs yvwiJ^]v h.vr]p 
Teyovevai, ts . . . 
. . . . rh de7ov elffrjyiicraTO. 

Ignot. «p. Sext. Empiric. 

As we have here arrived at a sort of landing-place, we 
.may devote a separate chapter to consider the full 
bearing of the conclusions thus formed. In so doing, 
we are not digressing from the main point, but rather 
we are removing a groundless prepossession which would 
lie in the road of all further advance, and we are at the 
same time calling attention to one of those important 
facts which it is the object of philology to illustrate or 
discover. 

For, obviously, if language was a human invention, 
and was due to a gradual development, there must have 
been a time in man's history when he was possessed of 
nothing but the merest rudiments of articulate speech ; 
in which, therefore, he must have occupied a lower 
grade than almost any existing human tribe. This is a 
conclusion which cuts at the root of many preconceived 



40 ON LANGUAGE. ch. iv. w 

theories. Thus, Lessing ^ remarks that Grod is too good 
to have withheld from his poor children, perhaps for 
centuries, a gift like speech; and M. de Bonald asks 
how we can suppose ' that a Grood Being could create a 
social animal without remembering that he ought also 
from the first moment of his existence to inspire him 
with the knowledge necessary to his individual, social, 
physical, and moral life.' Such reasoners, therefore, 
reject the doctrine of the human origin of language as 
alike an injustice to Grod and an indignity to man. 

In answer to such ' high priori ' reasonings, it might 
be sufficient to say that we are content, for our part, 
humbly to observe and record what G-od has done, 
rather than to argue what He oiight to do or ought not 
to do, incompetent as we are in our absolute ignorance 
* to measure the arm of Grod with the finger of man.' 
Claiming for ourselves the character of observers only, 
and desirous to accept the results to which our enquiries 
directly lead, without any regard to system or prejudice, 
w^e might easily repudiate assumptions which rest on the 
mere sandy basis of systematic prejudice. It is childish 
arrogance in us to argue what plans are consonant to, 
and what are derogatory of G-od's Divine Power and 
Infinite Wisdom. Seeing that we have not the capacity 
for understanding that which is, it is preposterous in us 
to argue on any general principles as to what must have 
been. Perfect humility and perfect faith, — a faith in 
Truth which seems to have the least power in many of 
the loudest champions of a supposed orthodoxy, — are 
the first elements of scientific success. The problems 
and mysteries which encumber all our enquiries, — ^the 

' Sdmmtl. Schriften, Bd. x. 



CH. IV. THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 41. 

adamantine wall against which we dash ourselves in 
vain whenever we seek to penetrate the secrets of the 
Deity, — should at least prevent us from following Lessing 
and M. de Bonald in laying down rules of our own, in 
accordance with which we fancy that God must inevitably 
have worked. 

Moreover, if language was a Eevelation and not an 
Invention, at what period in man's life was it revealed ? 
If, indeed, man was, according to the Chaldee paraphrast, 
created 'a speaking intelligence' (see p. 10), we get 
over this difficulty, though it is only at the expense of 
an absurdity, and by making the Bible contradict itself. 
But if not, there must have been a time, on any sup- 
position, when man wandered in the woods a dumb 
animal, till God bethought Him of inspiring language. 
Surely such a view is even less pious than that of 
Lucretius himself. ^Any one,' says Steinthal,^ 'who 
thinks of man without a Language ' [or, he should have 
added, the capacity for evolving a language] * thinks of 
him as one of the Brutes ; so that any one who calls 
down the Deity as his teacher of Language, gives Him 
only an animal as a scholar.' In other words, unless 
man was horn speaking, — (and it is apparent in Scrip- 
ture that language was subsequent to creation), — then^ 
even on this theory, man must have once been destitute 
of a language, and must, therefore, on this theory also, 
have emerged from a condition of mutism. Why then 
should a similar belief be held an insuperable objection 
to a theory so certain as the human discovery of lan- 
guage ? It is forsooth an insult to the dignity of man 
and a slur on the beneficence of God to suppose that 

^ TJrspr. d. Sprache, p. 40. 



42 ON LANGUAGE. ch. iv. 

man appeared on this earth in a low and barbarous 
condition ! But why is it ? Do those who use such 
reasonings consider that they are thereby arraigning 
and impugTiing before the bar of their own feeble cri- 
ticisms the actual dealings of G-od? If it be indeed 
irreconcileable with Grod's goodness to suppose that He 
would have created man in a savage state, is it more 
easy to believe that He would noiu suffer, as He does 
suffer, the existence of thousands who are doomed 
throughout life to a helpless and hopeless imbecility, 
and that for no fault of their own? — thousands in which 
the light of reason has been utterly quenched ; thousands 
in whom it never existed, and who pass in helpless 
idiocy from the cradle to the grave, as irresponsible as 
the brutes who perish, without language, without reli- 
gion, without knowledge, without hope? Facts like 
these ought to silence us for ever when we attempt 
beforehand to assign limits to the possible workings of 
Grod's Providence. We knoiv that He is infinitely good 
and gracious, but we cannot know how His Providence 
will work. 

If for many ages millions of the human race have 
been, and still are, born into a low and barbarous con- 
dition, why may they not have been originally so created? 
We know from history and from ordinary reasoning that 
existing savage races could not have sunk^ into this 
condition, and there seems every ground for believing 

that they are morally, mentally, and physically incapable 

]' 

* Arclibp. Whately {Treliminary Dissert, iii. in the Encycl. Britannica) \ 
argues that savages can never, of themselves, rise out of degradation ; it 
is as easy to show that they can never sink into such a condition. We 
do not beheve that the primeval savages were in any way direct ancestors 
of the two noble races — the Aryan and the Semitic. 



CH. IV. THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 43 

of rising' out of it, since they melt away before the 
advance of civilisation like the line of snow before the 
sunlight. ^God,' says M. Jules Simon,^ ^who suffers 
millions of savages to exist in three quarters of the 
globe, may well be supposed to have permitted in the 
beginning that which he permits at the present day.' 
What shall we say, for instance, of the tallow-coloured 
Bosjesman,^ who lives for the most part on beetles, 
worms, and pismires, and is glad enough to squabble 
with the hyaena for the putrid carcass of the buffalo or 
the antelope ? Of the leather-skinned Hottentot,^ ^ whose 
hair grows in short tufts, like a worn-down shoe brush, 
with spaces of bare scalp between,' and who is described 
as a creature 'with passions, feelings, and appetites 
as the only principles of his constitution'? Of the 
Yamparico, ' who speaks a sort of gibberish like the 
growling of a dog,' and who ' lives on roots, crickets, 
and several bug-like insects of different species ' ? '^ Of 
the aborigines of Victoria,^ among whom new-born 
babes are killed and eaten by their parents and brothers, 
and who have no numerals beyond three? Of the 
Puris^ of Brazil, who have to eke out their scanty 
language by a large use of signs, and who have no 
words for even such simple conceptions as ' to-morrow ' 



' Bev. des Deux Mondes, 1841, p. 536. 

^ Caldwell, Unity of the Human Eace, p. 75. 

^ Personal Adventures in S. Africa, by Eev. Gr. Brown (a missionary), 
p. 7- 

^ Capt. Mayne Eeid, Odd Faces, p. 330 sqq. 

* "W. Stainbridge on the Aborigines of Victoria. — Trans, of Ethn. 
Soc. 1861, p. 289. Fern-roots, grubs, mushrooms, and frogs are their 
main diet ; that of some other savages is too disgustful for utterance. — 
Grreenwood, Curiosities of Savage Life, p. 15. 

^ Mad. Ida Pfeiffer, Voyage round the World. 



44 ON LANGUAGE. ch. iv. 

and ' yesterday ' ? Of the naked, houseless, mischievous, 
vindictive Andamaner,^ with a skull hung ornamentally 
round his neck ? Of the Fuegians,^ ' whose language is 
an inarticulate clucking,' and who kill and eat their old 
women before their dogs, because, as a Fuegian boy 
naively and candidly expressed it, ' Doggies catch otters, 
old wcJmen no ' ? Of the Banaks,^ who wear lumps of 
fat meat, artistically suspended in the cartilage of the 
nose? Of the negroes of New Gruinea,^ who were seen 
springing from branch to branch of the trees like 
monkeys, gesticulating, screaming, and laughing? Of 
the Alforese^ of Ceram, who live in trees, ^ each family 
in a state of perpetual hostility with all around ' ? Of 
the forest-tribes of Malacca,^ ^who lisp their words, 
whose sound is like the noise of birds ? ' Of the wild 
people of Borneo,^ whom the Dyaks hunt as if they 
were monkeys ? Of the cannibal Fans ^ of equatorial 
Africa, who bury their corpses before eating them ? Of 
the pigmy Dokos,^ south of Abyssinia, ' whose nails are 
allowed to grow long like the talons of vultures, in 
order to dig up ants and tear in pieces the flesh of 
serpents, which they devour raw ' ? Of the wild Yeddahs ^° 
of Ceylon, who have gutturals and grimaces instead of 

^ Mouatt's Andamaners, p. 328. 

" Darwin, Voyage of a Naturalist, p. 214. The boy who gave the 
philosophic defence of cannibalism, imitated, as a great joke, the screams 
of the poor old women, while being choked in the smoke. 

^ Hutchinson, Ten Years' Wanderings, p. 245. 

* Crawfurd, Malay Gram. i. clxi. 

^ Pickering, Eaces of Man, p. 304 sqq. 

« Id. ' Id. 

^ Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa. This has been denied. 
• ^ Prichard, Nat. Hist. i. 306. Norris's Note. Dr. Davy, Eesearchcs, 
ii. 177. 

'° Sir J. Emerson Tennent, Ceylon. 



CH. IV. THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 45 

language ; ' who have no G-od ; no idea of time and dis- 
tance ; no name for hours, days, or years; and who 
cannot count beyond five on their fingers'? Of the 
Miautsee,^ or aborigines of China, whose name means 
' children of the soil,' and who, like the Malagassy, 
the Thibetans, and many African tribes, attribute their 
origin not to gods and demigods, not even to lions (as 
do the Sahos), or to goats (as do the Dagalis), but, with 
unblushing unanimity, to the ape ? Of the Negrilloes 
of Aramanga, the Battas of Sumatra, the wild people 
of Borneo, the hairy Ainos of Jesso, the Hygiaus of 
the White Nile, the Kukies and other aborigines of 
India, even the Cagots and other Eaces Maudites of 
France and Spain ? These beings, we presume no one 
will deny, are men with ordinary human souls. If then 
Grod can tolerate for unknown generations the perpe- 
tuation of such a state of existence as this, — the perpetu- 
ation of people with squalid habits, mean and deformed 
heads, hideous aspect, and protuberant jaws, — what 
possible ground is there for denying that he may also 
have suffered men at the Creation to live in what is 
called a state of nature, which is the name given to a 
state of squalor and ignorance, of savagery and degra- 
dation? Considering these facts, and believing with 
Schlegel that savage nations are savage by nature, and 
must ever remain so, some (and among them Niebuhr) 
have been Polygenists precisely because they thought 

1 Authorities for the facts mentioned in these two sentences will be 
found in Eitter, Erdkunde, Asien, ii. 273, 431 sqq. ; Hope, Ess. on the 
Origin of Man; Virey, Hist. Nat. du Genre Humain, ii. 12; i. 190. 
Pickering, Baces of Man, 175-179, 302-308; Journ. Asiat. Soc. of 
Bengal, xxiv. 206 ; Priehard, Nat. Hist, of Man, i. 250-274 (ed. Norris). 
Pouehet, Des Races, p. 59; Party, Anthropol. Vortrdge, p. 41 ; Michel, 
Hist, des Baces maudites, &c. 



46 OX LAJs'GUAGE. ch. tv. 

it was more consonant with G-od's attributes to have 
created men in different grades of elevation than to 
have suffered them to degenerate in so many regions 
from a condition originally exalted.^ The argument in 
•this case may be as worthless as in the other; but 
what is the value of a method of reasoning from w^hich 
two conclusions so opposite can be drawn ! 

It would be an error to suppose that ^the state of 
nature/ with its imperfect language^ its animal life, its 
few natural wants, its utter ignorance, is necessarily a 
state so low as to render existence a misfortune or a 
curse. Natui'e, in all probability, provided as bountifully 
for her first-born as she does for many of his descend- 
ants ; and if not, she at any rate ' makes habit omni- 
potent and its effects hereditary.' Even the Fuegian, 
in his land of cold and rain, — crawling from the lair in 
which he lies, unsheltered, coiled up like an animal on 
the wet gi'ound, to gather at all hours, from morn till 
midnight, the mussels and berries, which are his only 
food, — does not decrease in numbers, and must, there- 
fore, as Mr. Darwin observes,^ be supposed 'to enjoy a 
sufficient share of happiness (of whatever kind it may 
be) to render life worth having.' It is hard to say how 
little is '^ necessary' for man; and it is certain, both 
from Scripture and history, that not only the luxuries 
and ornaments of life, but even those things which we 
regard as indispensable^ were the gradual inventions, 
or long-delayed discoveries, of a race which had received 
from Grod certain faculties in order that they might at 
once be exercised and rewarded by a perpetual progress 
in dignity and self-improvement. There can be no 

^ Pouchet, Plural, des Eaces, p, 105. 
2 Darwin, Voy. of a JSaturalist, p. 216. 



CH. IV. THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 47 

question that the systems of those Eabbis and Fathers,^ 
and their modern imitators, who make Adam a being of 
stupendous knowledge and superhuman wisdom, are 
more improbable, as well as more unscriptural, than 
those of wTiters who, like Theophilus of Antioch among 
the Fathers, and Joseph Ben Grorion among the Jews, 
make his original condition a weak and inferior one. 
Philosophy, the arts, the sciences, the observations of 
the simplest natural facts, the elucidation of the simplest 
natural laws, required centuries to elaborate. We do 
not even hear of the first Jdngdom till some thousands 
of years after the first man. It is but as yesterday that 
man has wrung from the patient silence of Nature some 
of her most important, and apparently her most open 
secrets. 

It is forsooth a degradation to suppose that man 
originated in an ignorant and barbarous condition I 
People prefer the poet's fancies : — 

One man alone, the father of mankind, 
Drew not his life from woman ; never gazed 
With mute unconsciousness of what he saw 
On all around him; learned not by degrees: 
Nor owed articulation to his ear ; 
But, moulded by his Maker into man, 
At once upstood intelligent, surveyed 
All creatures; with precision understood 
Their purport, uses, properties; assigned 
To each his place significant ; and filled 
With love and wisdom, rendered back to Heaven 
In praise harmonious the first air he drew. 



» Clem. Alex. Strom, iv. 25, § 173 ; 23, § 152. Buddseus, Philos. 
Hehr. 383-388, where he gives the Kabbinic fancies about Adam Kadmon. 
Suidas s. v. 'Add/x. South, State of Man before the Fall, &c. On the 
other side see Clem. Alex. Strom, vi. 12, § 96 ; Greg. Naz. Orat. xxxviii. 
12 ; and even Irenaeus, Adv. HcBres. iv. 38. 



48 0^ LATs^GUAGE. ch. iv. 

He was excused the penalties of dull 
jVIinority. . . . History, not wanted yet, 
Leaned on her elbow, watching Time, whose course 
ETentful should supply her with a theme. ' 

Fascinating and poetical, no doubt; the primal man, 
regarded as a being beautiful of body, gracious in soul,^ 
filled in heart with virgin purity and sweetness, and 
discovering everything with exquisite and lightning- 
like spontaneity ! Nevertheless, ' Science ^ banishes 
amongst myths and chimeras the fancy of a primitive 
man, burning with youth and beauty, to show us upon 
icy shores I know not what abject being, more hideous 
than the Australian, more savage than the Patagonian, 
a fierce animal struggling against the animals with 
which he disputes his miserable existence.' What 
support is there for the poetic hypotheses of those who 
love their own assumptions better than they love the 
truths which science reveals? In a handful of rude 
and bizarre traditions, in a few skulls of the very 
meanest and most ^ degraded type, in here and there a 
gnawed fragment of human bones, in a few coarse and 
pitiable implements of bone and flint, what traces have 
we of that radiant and ideal protoplast whom men have 

» Cowper, The Task. 

2 The Bible tells us nothing of this kind ; but it would take us too 
long here to examine fully the Biblical data. I believe that when fairly 
and thorougiy considered, they sanction the view here expressed. For 
a picture of frightfully degraded aboriginal races, see Job xxx. 1-8 ; 
Ewald, Gesch. d. Volkes Israel, i. 27 ; De Gobineau, i. 486. 

3 Aug. Laugel, Rev. des Deux Mondes, May 1, 1863 ; c£ De Gobineau, 
De VInegcdite des Faces, i. 228 ; Link, Die JJrwelt, i. 84 ; Lyell, Princ. 
of Geol. i. 178 ; Laugel, Science et Philosophie, p. 270. 

* It has even been suspected (most likely on insuflS.eient grounds), from 
the position of xh.Q foramen magnum, that the head was not vertical on the 
neck. See Ethnol Trans, p. 269, 1863. 



CH. IV. THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 49 

delighted to invest with purely imaginary attributes, 
and to contemplate as the common ancestor of their 
race ? But man, in his futile and baseless arrogance, 
must exalt the earliest representatives of his kind, 
though he cannot deny the infinite debasement of his 
cotemporary brethren. He refuses to see in his far-off 
ancestors what he must see in his living congeners, a 
miserable ^ population maintaining an inglorious struggle 
with the powers of nature, wrestling with naked bodies 
against the forest animals, and forced to dispute their 
cave-dwellings with the hysena and the wolf. 

Years pass before the infant can realise and express his 
own individuality; ages may have rolled away before 
those ancestors of man who lived in the dim and misty 
dawn of human ^ existence could in any way understand 
their own position in the yet untamed chaos of the 
ancient world. The recognition of the long and feeble 
periods of animalism and ignorance is no more degra- 
ding to humanity than the remembrance of the time 
when he was rocked and swaddled and dandled in a 
nurse's arms is a degradation to any individual man. 
Disbelieving, on the scientific ground of the Fixity of 
Type,^ the Darwinian hypothesis, we should yet consider 

^ It is agreed on all hands that G-en. i. 26, has no bearing on this 
question, since it refers to the moral and intellectual nature of man — 
reason, hberty, immortality. ' Non secundum formam corporis factus 
est ad imaginem Dei, sed secundum rationalem mentem.' — Aug. de Trin. 
xii. 7. Obviously if all men — even Mundrucus and Ostiaks — are created 
in the ' image of God,' then the first men were so, however low theii* 
grade. 

2 It is a remarkable fact that native legends betray a reminiscence of 
the Elk, Mastodon, Megalonyx, Deinotherium, &c. Hamilton Smith,' 
Nat. Hist, of Human Spec. pp. 104-106 ; Maury, Des Ossemens humains 
{Mem. de la Soc. des Antiq. i. 287), &c. 

3 I may perhaps be allowed to refer to my paper on this subject read 

E 



5a ON LANGUAGE. ch. iv. 

it disgraceful and humiliating to try to shake it by an 
ad captandum argument, or a claptrap platform appeal 
to the unfathomable ignorance and unlimited arrogance 
of a prejudiced assembly. We should blush to meet it 
with an anathema or a sneer ; and in doing so we 
should be very far from the ludicrous and complacent 
assumption ' that we were on the side of the angels ! ' 
Is it not indisputable that man's body — ^ all but an 
inappreciable fragment of its substance ' — is composed 
of the very same materials, the same protein and fats, 
and salines, and water, which constitute the inorganic 
world, — which may unquestionably have served long ago 
as the dead material which was vivified and utilised in 
the bodies of extinct creatures, — and which may serve in 
endless metensomatosis ^ for we know not what organisms 
yet to come ? Was there, or was there not, a time in the 
embryonic dawn of individual life, when every one of 
us drew the breath of life by means not of lungs but of 
a species of gills ? Is this fact any disgrace to us, or 
will any pseudo-theologian have the dogmatic hardi- 
hood to deny it ? Are we, in our gross and haughty 
ignorance, to assume that, because by Grod's grace we 
carry in ourselves the destinies of so grand a future, a 
deep and impassable gulf of separation must therefore 
divide even the material particles of our frame from 
those of all other creatures which find their develop- 
ment in so poor a life ? What sanction have we for 
this assumption? Is it to be found in the future fate of 

before tlie British Association this year, and now in the Ethnolog. Soc.'s 
Transactions. 

1 If the word, which has the authority of Clemens Alexandrinus, and 
which is now imperiously demanded by the wants of science, may be 
pardoned on the score of its necessity. 



CH. IV. THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 51 

the elements of our body — destined, as we know they 
are, to be swept along by the magic * eddy of nature, 
to be transmuted by her potent alchemy into nameless 
transformations, and subjected by her pitiless economy 
to what we should blindly consider as nameless dis- 
honour ? or, looking backwards as well as forwards, is 
it to be found in the fact that there are stao^es in the 
earlier development of the human embryo, during 
which the most powerful microscope, and the most 
delicate analysis, can neither detect nor demonstrate 
the slightest difference between the ^ three living germs 
of which one is destined to be a wolf, the second a 
horse, and the third a man ? If the question is to be 
degraded from scientific decision into a matter for tea- 
table aesthetics and ignorant prepossessions, is this 
certain embryonic degradation or immaturity less op- 
pressive than the admission of a bare possibility that, 
myriads of centuries ago, there may have been a near 
genetic connection between the highest of the animals 
and the lowest of the human race? It is not yet 
proved that there was ; we believe that there was not ; 
but, nevertheless, the hypothesis is neither irreverent 
nor absurd. Let those who- love truth only con&ider 
what are the certain facts about our mortal bodies^ and 
be still; — awaiting the gradual revelation of His own 
past workings which the All-wise Creator may 3^et 
vouchsafe, not assuredly to the clamorous, the idle, and 
the ignorantly denunciative, but to humble and studious 
enquirers, — to those loftier and less self-complacent 
souls, whom He has endowed with the desire, the wisdom, 
and the ability to search out the pathless mystery of 

* Colevi^e, Aids to Beflect ion ; Huxley, XeciJ. pp. 15-19 ; Hamlet, \.l. 
'^ Karl Snell, Die Schopfung des Menschen, p. 130. 

£ 2 



52 OX LANGUAGE. ch. iv. 

His ways, through long years of noble and self-sacrifi- 
cing toil. 

It has, indeed, been asserted that the languages of 
some barbarous nations — for instance, the G-reenlanders 
and the North American Indians — are of so rich, so 
:perfect, and so artistic a structure, that they could not 
:possibly have been achieved by them in their present 
condition, and furnish a proof that they have sunk into 
savagery from a state of higher culture. Du Ponceau ' 
speaks in the most glowing terms of the genius dis- 
played in the infinite variety and perfect regularity of 
those lano:uao^es. Charlevoix calls attention to the 
beautiful union of energy and nobleness in the Huron, 
where, as in the Turkish, ' tout se conjugue.' Dr. 
James says that there are seven or eight thousand pos- 
sible forms of the verb in Chippeway. Appleyard ^ tells 
us that ' the South African languages, though spoken 
by tribes confessedly uncivilised and illiterate, are 
highly systematic and truly philosophical ; ' that in 
Kafir there are a hundred different forms for the pro- 
noun 'its,'^ and that 'the system of alliteration main- 
tained throughout its grammatical forms is one of the 
most curious and ingenious ever known.' Threlkeld ^ 
tells us similar facts about the Australian dialects; and 
•Caldwell,^ in his ' Comparative Grrammar of the Dravi- 
4ian Languages,' occupies many pages with the laws of 
euphonic permutation of consonants and harmonic se- 



' Et, du Ponceau, Me/n. sur le Syst. Gram, de quelques Nations in- 
diennes, passim. A most valuable and brilliant work. 

2 Kafir Grammar, pref. 

3 Id. p. 66 ; p. 6, note, &e. 

* Threlkeld, Australian Gram. p. 8. 
^ Dravidian Grammar, -pp. 126-138. 



CH. IV. THE INFANCY OF HUMANITY. 53 

quence of vowels, which exist both in those and in the 
Scythian languages. Instances of similar exuberance 
and complexity in savage languages might be indefinitely 
multiplied ; ^ and the argument that they imply an 
intellectual power superior to what we now find in these 
races, and that they therefore prove a condition pre- 
viously exalted, is so plausible that in a former - work 
I regarded it as convincing. Further examination has 
entirely removed this belief. For this apparent wealth 
of synonyms and grammatical forms is chiefl}^ due to the 
hopeless poverty of the power of abstraction. It would be 
not only no advantage, but even an impossible incum-- 
brance to a language required for literary purposes. The 
'transnormal' character of these tongues only proves that 
they are the work of minds incapable of all subtle 
analysis, and following in one single direction an erro- 
neous and partial line of development. When the 
mind has nothing else to work upon, it will expend its 
energy in a lumbering and bizarre multiplicity of lin- 
guistic expedients, and by richness of expression will 
try to make up for poverty of thought. Many of these 
vaunted languages {e. g, the American and Polynesian), 
— these languages which have countless forms of conju- 
gation, and separate words for the minutest shades of 
specific meaning, — these holophrastic languages, with 
their ^jewels fourteen syllables long,' to express the 
commonest and most familiar objects, — so far from 
proving a once-elevated intellectual condition of the 
people who speak them, have not even yet arrived at 

' Appleyard, p. 69 ; Du Ponceau, p. 95 ; Howse, Cree Gram. p. 7 ; 
Pott, Die Ungleichheit d. menschl. Eagen, p. 253 ; Steinthal, Charakter- 
istik, p. 176 ; Maury, La Terre et FRomme, p. 463. 

2 Origin of Lang. p. 28. See too Vater, Mithrid. iii. 328. 



54 OX LANGUAGE. ch. iv, 

the very simple abstraction ^ required to express the 
verb ' to be,' which Condillac assumed to be the earliest 
of invented verbs ! The state of these languages, so far 
from proving any retrogression from previous culture, 
is an additional proof of primordial and unbroken bar- 
barism. The triumph of civilisation is not complexity 
but simplicity : and unless an elaborate Polytheism be 
more intellectual than Monotheism, — unless the Chinese 
ideography, with its almost indefinite number of signs, 
be a proof of greater progress than our alphabet, — then 
neither is mere Polysynthetism and exuberance of syn- 
onyms a proof of actual culture in the past, or possible 
progress in the future. If language proves anything, 
it proves that these savages must have lived continuously 
in a savage condition.^ 

1 will here quote two high and unbiassed authorities 
in support of the same conclusion : — 

'It has already been observed,' says Mr. Grarnett,^ 
' that very exaggerated and erroneous ideas have been 
advanced respecting the structure of the class of lan- 
guages of which we have been treating in the present 
paper. They have been represented as the products 
of deep philosophical contrivance, and totally different 
in organisation from those of every part of the known 

' In American and Polynesian languages there are forms for ' I am 
well,' ' I am here,' &c., but not for ' I am.' In Elliot's Indian Bible 'I 
am that I am,' is rendered • I do, I do' (compare the French idiom 'il 
fait nuit,' &c.). More than this, savage nations cannot eten adopt the 
verb ' to be.' A negro says, ' Your hat no lib that place you put him in.' 
'My mother done lib for devilly ' (=is dead).— Hutchinson, Ten Years' 
Wanderings, p. 32. 

2 See among many other authorities Pott, Die UngL der menschl. 
Ragen, p. 86 ; Du Ponceau, Transl. of Zeisberger' s Lenni-Lenape Gram. 
p. 14 ; Crawfurd, Malay Gram. i. 68 ; Adelung, Mithrid. iii. 6, 205. 

' Fhilological Essays, p. 321. 



CH. IV. THE mFA'NCY OF HUMANITY. 55 

world. The author of " Mithridates " regards it as an 
astonishing phenomenon that a people like the Grreen- 
landers, struggling for subsistence among perpetual ice 
and snow, would have found the means of constructing 
such a complex and artificial system. It is conceived 
that there cannot be a greater mistake than to suppose 
that a complicated language is like a chronometer, or a 
locomotive engine, a product of deep calculation, and 
preconceived adaptation of its several parts to each 
other. The compound parts are rather formed like 
crystals, by the natural affinity of the component ele- 
ments ; and whether the forms are more or less complex, 
the principle of aggregation is the same.' 

^ In those which abound most in inflections,' says Mr. 
Albert Grallatin,^ ' nothing more has been done than to 
effect, by a most complex process, and with a cumber- 
some and unnecessary machinery, that which, in almost 
every other language, has been as well, if not better 
performed by the most simple means. Those transitions, 
in their complexness, and in the still visible amalgama- 
tion of the abbreviated pronouns with the verb, bear, in 
fact, the impress of primitive and unpolished languages.' 

Language, then, from whatever point of view we 
regard it, seems to confirm instead of weakening the 
inference to which we are irresistibly led by Greology, 
History, and Archaeology — that Man, 

The heir of all the ages in the foremost files of Time, 

is a very much nobler and more exalted animal than the 
shivering and naked savage whose squalid and ghastly 
relics are exhumed from Danish kjokken-moddings, and 

' ArchcBologia Americana, ii. p. 203, quoted by Mr. Grarnett. 



56 ON LANGUAGE. ch. iv. 

glacial deposits, and the stalactite flooring of freshly- 
opened caves. These primeval lords of the untamed 
creation, so far from being the splendid and angelic 
beings of the poet's fancy, appear to have resembled far 
more closely the Tasmanian, the Fuegian, the Grreen- 
lander, and the lowest inhabitants of Pelagian caverns 
or Hottentot kraals. We believe that in Scripture itself 
there are indications that they appeared upon the sur- 
face of the globe many ages before those simple and 
noble-minded shepherds from whose loins have sprung 
the Aryans and Semites — those two great races to whom 
all the world's progress in knowledge and civilisation 
has been solely due. 



57 



CHAPTEE V. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF DISTINCT THOUGHT. 

Wenn ein unendlich G-efiihl aufwogt in der Seele des Dichter's, 

dann mag er ahnen von fern das G-eheimniss der Spraclie, 
Wie in der Zeiten Beginn aus dem erwachenden Greist, 

Da er sich selbst und die Dinge vernahm, das lebendige Wort spracli 
Offenbarung und That, gottlich und menschlich zugleich. 

Geibel. 

LA.NGUAGE may with more accuracy be called a Discovery 
or a Creation, than an Invention of the human race. 
Undoubtedly the idea of speech existed in the human 
intelligence as a part of our moral and mental constitu- 
tion when man first appeared upon the surface of the 
earth. In this sense we may call language a divine 
gift, and may apply to it, with perfect truth, the passage 
of Tertullian : * invenisse dicuntur necessaria ista vitse, 
non instituisse ; quod autem invenitur fuit, et quod fuit 
non ejus deputabitur qui invenit, sed ejus qui instituit. 
Erat enim antequam inveniretur.' ^ 

But the germs may perish for want of development, 
and like the seeds in the diluvium, or grains of wheat in 
the hand of a mummy, may lie hidden for centuries 
before they meet with that combination of circumstances 
which is capable of quickening them into life. Yet we 

' Apoloff. adv. GenteSf xi. 



58 ON" LANGUAGE. ch. v. 

do not agree with Lessing in supposing that if man dis- 
covered language by the exercise of his own endowments, 
i.e. if he merely evolved the speech-power which existed 
within him as an immanent faculty, long centuries 
would necessarily have been required for the purpose. 
The wants of primitive men, like the wants of infants, 
are few and simple,^ and wholly sensuous. It is certain, 
by universal admission, that the ultimate roots of lan- 
guage are few in number ; it is nearly certain that no 
language possesses more than a thousand, and that some 
have far fewer. These roots we regard as mere etymo- 
logic fictions ; but if, with Max Miiller, we suppose that 
they were ever used as words, there must, even on this 
theory, have been a period when men used but a few 
words ; and consequently, since the notion of any reve- 
lation of these roots is expressly repudiated, there must 
have been a time, however short, in which man had no 
words, no articulate language at all, and in which 
significant gestures could have been his only way for 
communicating his thoughts. And this time, however 
short, must also be postulated even if, in defiance of 
Scripture, it be supposed that language was revealed. 

But why should it be held impossible that man once 
existed with nothing but the merest rudiments of 
speech ? There are whole nations even now which, if 
the testimony of travellers is to be accepted, possess very 

> Prof. Max Miiller traces back all language to ' roots,' and there he 
would stop, declaring the use of them to be an ultimate and inexplicable 
fact. Inexplicable indeed! yet the ' theory of roots,' 'phonetic types,' 
incapable of further analysis and, so far as appears, either wholly arbi- 
trary, or else containing in themselves some mystic inherent fitness, is 
offered to us in the place of theories, so simple, so natural, and in part 
so demonstrable, as those which trace the rise and gradual growth of 
language out of onomatopoeia and interjection. 



CH. V. DEVELOPMEN"! OF THOUGHT. 59 

little more. Nor, indeed, is it necessary to look to the 
remotest parts of the earth to find how very few are the 
words which are necessary to express the wants of man. 
Mr. D'Orsey mentions that some of his parishioners had 
not a vocabulary of more than 300 words ; and although 
the assertion has been widely disputed, I should cer- 
tainly be inclined to confirm it out of my own experi- 
ence. I once listened for a long time together to the 
conversation of three peasants who were gathering 
apples among the boughs of an orchard, and as far as I 
could conjecture-, the whole number of words they used 
did not exceed a hundred ; the same word was made to 
serve a multitude of purposes,^ and the same coarse 
expletives recurred with a horrible frequency in the 
place of every single part of speech, and with every 
variety of meaning which the meagre context was 
capable of supplying. Repeated observation has since 
then confirmed the impression. If this be so in Chris- 
tian and highly-civilised England in the nineteenth 
century, what may not have been perhaps ten thousand 
years before the Saviour was born into the world ? 

If, then, man once existed with only the gernns of 
speech and of understanding, to what was their develop- 
ment due? The question admits of distinct answer, 
and that answer is full both of interest and value. 

The first men who ever lived must have learned for 
themselves those simplest lessons which have to be 
learnt afresh by every infant of their race. Confused, 
yet lovely, was the multitude of influences and appear- 
ances by which they w^re surrounded ; how should they 



' Just as in Chinese the same root may be a noun, a verb, and some- 
times also a particle. Heyse, § 134. 



60 OX LANGUAGE. ch. t. 

thrid the ail-but inextricable mazes of impressions so 
manifold ? Over their heads the sun, and moon, and 
the infinite stars of heaven,^ rose and set in endless 
succession ; the heavens outspread their illimitable 
splendour ; woods waved, and waters rolled, and flowers 
exhaled their perfume, and fruits yielded their sweet- 
ness, and the hours of day and night and the four 
seasons of the year encircled them in their mystic dance. 
Had man been created unintelligent, and merely recep- 
tive, the waves of this vast tide of being must have broken 
over him in vain ; and, in the absence of a living spirit, 
the world must have continued to seem unto all save 
the Highest Being a formless chaos — no better, for all 
its lustre and loveliness, than if the darkness had still 
brooded over the void abyss. But that soul, ' created 
in the image of God,' whose birth is recorded in the 
book of Genesis, bore no resemblance to the statue-man 
of CondiUac's famous Traite des Sensations. Had it 
been so, the senses could only have produced a jarring 
multitude of heterogeneous impressions, and man would 
have continued to be that mere organised sensitive mass 
which Saint Lambert supposes him to be at the moment 
of his birth until * Nature has created for him a soul ! ' 
For unless there had also been in man the ' intellectus 
ipse ' of Leibnitz, unless there had been the intelligence, 
as well as the sensormm commune^ even sensation 
would be impossible,^ seeing that in the complex act 
which we call sensation man opposes the internal action 
of his conscious individuality to the influence of external 
causes. Without this apperception, there could be no 

^ See a glorious passage of S. Ckrysostom, Or. xii. 385, quoted by 
Lersch, i. 89; and Herbart, Lehrh. d. Fst/chol. p. 194. 
2 Herbart, Psychol, p. 108. 



cir. V. DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT. 61 

such thing as self-conscious sensation,^ nor could man- 
kind ever have arisen to any higher region than that of 
mere organic impressions. 

But although at first the intellect he but a passive 
and dormant faculty, it is there, and it is the sole 
clue wherewith we disentangle the myriad-ravelled in- 
tricacy of sensuous impressions. And thus the senses 
become the gateways of knowledge; and a man born 
without the capacity for external sensations would also 
be of necessity soulless and mindless, because, though 
not the single source of all our thoughts and faculties, 
the senses are yet the necessary condition of their 
development. Thus it is that the senses, during the 
earliest days of man's existence, act the part of nursing 
mothers ^ to the soul, to which afterwards they become 
the powerful and obedient handmaids. They are the 
organs of communion between man and the outer world ; 
they place him en rajoport with it, uniting man to the 
Universe, and men to one another. Thus they baptize 
man as a member of the moral and physical cosmos. 



' See Yict. Cousin, Cotcrs de Phil. iii. passim. ' Sensation,' says Morell, 
* is not purely a passive state, but implies a certain amount of mental 
activity. It may be described on the psychological side as resulting 
directly from the attention which the mind gives to the affections of its 
own organism. Extreme enthusiasm, or powerful emotion of any kind, 
can make us altogether insensible to physical injury.' Hence, a soldier, 
during the battle, is often unconscious of his wounds, and a general of 
the roar of cannon going on around him, ' Numerous facts of a similar 
kind prove demonstrably, that a certain application and exercise of 
mind, on one side, is as necessary to the existence of sensation, as the 
occurrence of physical impulse on the other.' — Psychology, p. 107. In 
point of fact, some nations are as pre-eminent for the keenness of their 
isenses as for the meanness of their intellect, which could not be the case 
if the senses created the intellect. 

2Heyse, ^, c. 



62 ON LANGUAGE. ch. v. 

and awaken thereby the intellect, whicli would other- 
wise ^ remain infructuous, like an unquickened seed. 

The first conception which man must learn is the 
conception of his own separate independent existence, 
and without this conscious distinction between the Ego 
and the Non-ego, — not indeed as a notion so clear and 
accurate as to admit of expression by the nominative of 
the personal pronoun, but as the general basis of all 
possible sensations, — he cannot advance a single step. 
And this lesson he learns by contact with the outer 
world, and mainly, beyond all doubt, from the organ of 
sight. At first he would regard himself (as all children 
do) rather as an object than a subject;^ rather as 'me' 
than as ' I ; ' rather as 68s than as syco ; rather in relation to 
others than as Hhe machine w^hich is to him, himself.' 
But even this elementary lesson is sulBficient for the 
purposes of further education ; and 

As he grows he gathers much 

And learns the use of ' I' and 'me,' 

And finds ' I am not what I see, 
And other than the things I touch : ' 

So rounds he to a separate mind 

From whence clear memory may begin. 
As thro' the frame that binds him in 

His isolation grows defined^ 



' ' The earliest sign by which the Ego becomes perceptible is corporeal 
sensation.' — Feuchtersleben, Med. 'Psychol, p. 83, quoted by Fleming, 
Vocab. of Phil. p. 457. 

2 Mr. Browning, with that rare metaphysical accuracy which charac- 
terises him, no less than the other great poet of our age, chooses the third 
person as the only appropriate one for the meditations of the semi-brutal 
Caliban. 

' Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos ; 
Thinketh he dwelleth in the cold grey moon,' &c. 

Theology in the Idrnid. 
^ Tennyson, In Memoriam, xliv. 



CH. V. DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT. 63 

The child, like the primal man, who has advanced 
thus far, learns with rapid and intuitive instinct to 
separate and discriminate between the many distinct 
and different impressions caused by physical contact 
with the outer world. 

Thus, then, by means of an instinctive and reciprocal 
action, the senses develop the self-conscious individu- 
ality; and the self-consciousness, which contains indeed 
the germ of all intelligence, first quickens and then 
distinguishes, analyses, and combines, the impressions of 
those senses which have called it into life. And since 
two factors — the physical and the psychical — are in- 
dispensable to every true sensation, the two are so in- 
timately related that, whereas without the psychical 
factor the physical could not exist, on the other hand, 
without the physical factor the psychical could not be 
developed. Speech is undoubtedly the product of the 
thinking spirit; but this spirit^ received the first im- 
pulse of development from the impressions of the outer 
world and the needs of practical life. 

At first, if we may trust the analogy of childhood, 
even sensuous influences must have been frequently 
repeated before they produced any definite impression. 
Feeling, which is a dull total impression, precedes 
sensation, to which indeed some of the lowest organisms 

' Steinthal, GrammatiJc, LogiJc, und Fsychol. 238 fg. Heyse, § 46. 
In this and the following remarks I have chiefly, though by no means 
exclusively, followed this wise and clear thinker. I fear that the un- 
familiar words, intuition, representation, concept, &c., will render this 
tedious to readers unaccustomed to metaphysical enquiry ; but I thought 
it better to adopt them than to confuse matters by that excessive loose- 
ness of English philosophical terms which we chiefly owe to the vacil- 
lating usage of Locke. I am greatly indebted to Fleming's Vocabulary 
of Fhilosojphy. 



64 ON LANGUAGE. ch. v. 

can never attain at all; for, as we have seen already, 
an act of attention is required for every definite sensa- 
tion, and it is not until after many sensations that we 
obtain a clear perception. * Light ^ strikes on the infant 
retina ; waves of air pulsate on the infant tympanum, 
but these as yet produce neither sight nor hearing ; they 
are only the preparations for sight and hearing. . . . On 
the educated sense objects act so instantaneously as to 
produce what we call their sensations ; on the uneducated 
sense they act only so as to produce a vague impression, 
which becomes more and more definite by repetition.' 

It is not, however, long before the sensuous impression 
[Sinnes-eindruck) has kindled the electric fire of self- 
consciousness — in other words, the presentation soon 
becomes a perception or a sensation ; for by a perception 
iWahrnehrming) we mean a conscious presentation in 
reference to an object, and by a sensation {E'm'pfindung) 
we mean a conscious presentation in reference to the 
modification of our own being. The impression on the 
senses, by calling into reciprocal action the two parts of 
our nature, produces a sensation, i. e. a certain conscious 
change in the state of our own minds ; and these sensa- 
tions rapidly give us a perception, i. e. they teach us 
something, which is at least subjectively true, respecting 
the qualities of matter. 

But sensation and perception are common to man 
mth the more intelligent animals, and the perfection 

1 Lewes, Biog. Hist, of Phil. p. 442. That attention is necessary even 
for a sensation, we may see from tlie fact that ordinarily (without a 
definite act of abstraction and observation) we are wholly unconscious of 
the numberless reflections of hght, sound, smell, &c., which are playing 
on our senses. In fact, the phenomena of abstraction, reverie, preoccu- 
pation, absence of mind, &c., all point to this conclusion. See Sir H. 
Holland, Cha'pters on Mental Physiology. 



CH. V. DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT. 65 

of human reason enables us to advance further than this. 
Sensations tell us nothing about objects, but only about 
properties or attributes ; we rise from sensations there- 
fore to intuitions (Anschauungen),^ which are a complex 
of all the sensations caused by an object. Sensations 
are analytical ; they come to us from different senses, 
and tell us the shape, colour, sound, weight, hardness, 
&c., of an object: the intuition givQS us the object 
itself as the synthesis of all these separable attributes, 
so that gradually we grow familiar with the sensuous 
perception, in its totality, as a ' collective impression,' 
or definite picture, ' presented ^ under the condition of 
distinct existence in space or time ; ' and this we call an 
Intuition, i. e., according to the definition of Coleridge, 
' a perception immediate and individual.' 

And when this intuition has, by the power of abstrac- 
tion, been raised into a complete picture, capable of 
being analysed into various elements, and is held fast 
in the consciousness as a permanent intellectual form, 
which may be banished and recalled at will, then we 
have a Representation {Vorstellung)^ — the first per- 
manent product of intellectual spontaneity, the first 
definite intellectual exertion of the will. 

Lastly, by still higher processes of intellectual abstrac- 

* Steinthal, Gram. Log. und Fsychol. 261. His general outline of the 
psycliological process differs in some particulars from Heyse's. Mr. Mill 
{Logic, i. 58 sq.) briefly touches on the same subject. He only alludes 
to perceptions as acts of the mind ' which consist in the recognition of 
an external object as the exciting cause of the sensation.' 

2 Mansell, Proleg. Log. p. 9. We mean, of course, an ' empirical 
intuition,' which, in the Kantian philosophy, corresponds to the repre- 
sentation of a sensible object. Grerman, Anschauung. 

8 Steinthal calls this Anschauung der Anschauung, i. e. a power of 
regarding the intuition (v. supra) as an Intuition, which is firmly fixed 
in the consciousness and memory. GrammatiJc, p, 295. 

F 



66 ON LANGUAGE. ch. v. 

tion, in which the judgment for the first time plays a 
part, we raise the representation into the sphere of 
generality, and then possess a notion or concept [Begriff). 
A concept^ grasps an object as the synthesis of all its 
constituent attributes or properties ; the Eepresenta- 
tion or image {Vorstellung) is subjective, and different 
people may have different images of the same object; 
but the notion is the objective conception of the species, 
and being independent of all accidental marks of the 
individual representation, is and must be the same for 
all men. The representation is due to the analytic 
activity of Abstraction, but is entangled with the sen- 
suous accidents of the individual object; the notion (or 
concept) is the product of a higher creative activity of 
the thinking (logical) intelligence, and produces that 
ideal synthesis which enables us to think of a Grenus or 
Species. It so far retrogrades to the concrete intuition 
as to reduce to unity a multitude of phenomena ; but 
this unity is not that of the immediate object, but one 
ideally recognised by the synthetic activity of the in- 
tellect. The representation is arrived at by a merely 
material analysis of the Intuition; the notion'^ by a 
formal and logical analysis; and distinct knowledge is 
impossible without notions, which are thus the com- 
mencement of the development of pure logical thought. 



' ' Conception ' should more accurately be used of ' the act of the under- 
standing, bringing any given object or impression into the same class 
with any number of other, objects or impressions, by means of some 
character or characters common to them all' (Coleridge, Church and 
State, Prel. Bon.); concept of the result of the act. 

2 ' Notions, the depthless abstractions of fleeting phenomena, the 
shadows of flitting vapours, the colourless repetitions of rainbows, have 
effected their utmost when they add to the distinctness of our know- 
ledge.' Coleridge. 



CH. V. DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT. 67 

Nevertheless, words correspond not to notions, but to 
images or representations. They mark the object of 
perception, not in the totality of its essential attributes, 
but by some single mark whereby the image may be 
conceived and fixed in the intelligence. In fact, the 
representation ( Vorstellung^y^Nhioh. in ordinary, although 
not in philosophical language, is called the conception, 
is a mere evipirical notion, derived from familiarity 
with the external properties of the object (Anschauungs- 
begriff, Erfahrungshegriff), and this is what every word 
expresses. The logical conception may be indefinitely 
more accurate and profound, but must yet employ the 
same word for its expression. Thus, to men in general, 
' bird ' simply means a creature with wings ; nor would 
their rough definition of it exclude either butterflies 
or bats; yet the man of science has no other word 
than this (bird), to express the complex of essential cha- 
racteristics involved in the accurate definition. And the 
philosopher uses the word * man,' no less than the world 
in general ; although the philosopher thereby expresses 
an idea which it exhausts his intellect to describe or to 
define, while the world merely implies by it the animal 
which Plato characterised as ' a featherless biped,' and 
which a modern philosopher has described as ^ a forked 
radish with a curiously carved head.' 

To illustrate this process : (i.) I see a bird flying, or 
a tree in bloom, and it makes a sensuous im-pression 
on my retina ; but if I am absent or preoccupied, I may 
be wholly unconscious of this impression, which does 
not become even a sensation until my consciousness is 
excited. But when this is done, when my Attention is 
drawn to it, I have (ii.) a perception {Wahrnehmung). 
When I contemplate this perception as an inward pic- 

F 2 



68 0^ LANGUAGE. ch. v. 

ture, mirrored in my consciousness, I have (iii.) the 
intuition (Anschauung) of the flying bird and the 
blooming tree. If, by abstraction, I separate this 
individual phenomenon in its concrete totality into its 
several component elements, and range those elements 
under some definite intellectual form as an ideal pos- 
session of my consciousness, I then have (iv.) the repre- 
sentations ( VoTstellungen, vernacule * conceptions ') of 
* bird,' ' flying,' ' tree,' ' blooming.' But the analytic 
activity of the intelligence proceeds still farther into 
particulars : it separates the elements of a representa- 
tion, and apprehends them as so many independent 
representations. In the tree it distinguishes between 
leaf, twig, stem, root, and the properties of height, 
greenness, &c. — all of which furnish so many separate 
representations. It further distinguishes the species of 
a representation, such as tree, into oak, beech, pine, &c., 
each regarded as special representations, and recognised 
by specific signs ; all of which I bear in mind when I 
use the word ^ tree,' which thus, by material analysis, 
becomes to me (v.) an empirical concept (Erfahrungs- 
begriff), formed by a synthesis of observed characteris- 
tics, and expressing more or less adequately the nature 
of the object. Lastly, by still further acts of intellec- 
tual abstraction, I arrive (vi.) at the logical notion 
{Verstandeshegriff), which is no longer merely empirical 
or material, but which, by the synthetic activity ^ of the 
judgment, recognises the object as the sum-total of all 
those attributes (and those only) which constitute its 
essence. 

Once more then. From passive receptivity I am 

» Heyse, p. 86. 



CH. V. DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT. 69 

awoke by sensuous impressions into free, spontaneous, 
creative activity, whereby I pass througb the stages of 
sensation and perception to that of Intuition, in which 
I first become independent of the immediate effect of 
the external object on my senses, and then free myself 
from the dominion of the senses, and possess an inward 
picture which I can contemplate without any assistance 
from them. Still advancing, my intellect creates re- 
presentations for itself, no longer merely retaining the 
sensuous picture, but forming it to an ideal existence, 
and using it as its own possession and its own pro- 
duction. 

Sensations, Perceptions, Intuitions are individual 
and special in their character ; but representations are 
general, and no longer refer to that which is single and 
concrete, or to the individual object of perception. In 
this sense all words are Abstracta. The real world of 
appearances, in which everything is individual, is 
recreated ^ by the intelligence into an ideal world of 
general conceptions. 

Thus, then, we have traced the psychological growth 
of the concepts, which may be represented by language. 
A word is a recognised audible sign for a special definite 
Intuition or concept. From the genesis of the concept 
we pass to the genesis of the sound which is accepted 
as its sign ; and the questions which we have to consider 
are. How does the sound originate, and what is the 
connection, if any, between these two elements, the 
intellectual and the sensual, the concept and the sound ? 
We need not fear that all such questions are insoluble. 
Speech is the expression of the free intellect, and if the 

^ Heyse, p. 88. 



70 ON LANGUAGE. ch. v. 

laws and processes of the intellect are capa,ble of being 
conceived and understood, why should Speech,^ which is 
nothing miraculous, arbitrary, or accidental, but which 
is the natural organ and product of the intellect, be 
deemed incapable of similar comprehension ? 

1 Heyse, s. 20. 



71 



CHAPTEE VI. 

POSSIBLE MODES OF EXPEESSING THOUGHT. 

He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with 
his fingers. — Pnov. yi, 13. 

Feom what we have already observed, it is evident that 
every mode of expression serves only to describe internal 
sensations, not outward facts ; it throws light on that 
which is subjective, not on that which is objective ; it 
expresses ourselves, not the world around us; sensations, 
perceptions, intuitions, not external things. 

But what is the Tnedium of expression ? Obviously 
it must have been one of the senses, which are the main 
gateways of knowledge, the portals of intercommuni- 
cation between man a,nd man, between men and the 
Universe around them. 

It is conceivable that a language {i. e. a mode of com- 
munication) might have been invented which should use 
the medium of ^ the touch, the taste, or the smell. Yet 
such a language, in the case of the two latter, could not 
but be infinitely imperfect, difficult, and obscure, nor 
has the attempt ever been made. This is to a less 
degree the case with the touch. It is well known that 
among certain animals the touch does serve all neces- 
sary purposes of intercommunication. Bees, for instance, 

1 Heyse, p. 29 ; Charma, Ess. sur le Lang. p. 50. 



72 ON LA]S^GUAGE. ch. vi. 

to mention but one notorious case, communicate to 
each other the death of the queen by a rapid interlacing 
and striking together of the antennse. Nor is a tactile 
language wholly unknown to man. For instance, the 
Armenian merchants, as we are informed by the traveller 
Chardin, are able to inform each other of any modifica- 
tion in their bargains, however complex, without the 
notice of the purchaser, by holding their hands toge- 
ther under their mantles, and moving^ them in a par- 
ticular manner. Yet a language which required for its 
possible development a constant contact, could never 
serve the purposes of so elevated a being as man. 

The two highest and most ideal senses remain, and 
these, as they affect the soul more nearly and powerfully 
than the others, were clearly the best adapted for the 
expression of thought, which is a modification of the 
intelligent subject. We find accordingly that all actual 
language addresses itself to the eye or to the ear. 

For in point of fact Art may be regarded as a lan- 
guage. We have read of a sculptor who conveyed, by 
means of a statue, the intense impression produced in 
his mind by the dawn of a summer day ; and there is 
scarcely a thought, an emotion, or a fact that may not 
be conveyed by painting. Imitation — a fundamental 
principle on which rests the possibility of any commu- 
nication between two sentient beings — may appeal as 
directly to the eye as to the ear. Philomela effectually 
reveals, by the mute tapestry, her woven tale : — 



^ Voy. en Perse, iv. 267, ed. Eouen. * The finger extended means ten ; 
bent it means five ; the bottom of the finger is one ; the hand, a hundred ; 
the hand bent, a thousand. By similar motions of the hand they indicate 
pounds, shillings, and pence, — their faces all the while continuing to be 
expressionless and blank.' 



CH. VI. MODES OF EXPEESSION. 73 

Os mutum facti caret indice. Grande doloris 
Ingenium est, miserisque yenit solertia rebus ! 
Stamina barbarica suspendit Candida tela, 
Purpureasque notas .filis intexuit albis. 
Indicium sceleris.' 

Shakspeare's mutilated Lavinia does not lack the means 
of revealing the authors of the outrage she has suffered. 
Pictures and hieroglyphics continue to this day among 
various Indian tribes, a sure method of reporting facts ; 
and we know from history that a rude sketch first con- 
veyed to Montezuma the ominous intelligence that men 
in strange vessels and of strange garb had landed on his 
shores. Nay, more, the mighty invention of a written 
alphabet has translated the sounds addressed to the ear 
into symbols for the eye ; and one half at least of the 
thoughts of other men, whereof we become cognisant 
from day to day, is conveyed to us through the medium 
of sight. 

How easy and how natural would have been a lan- 
guage of gesticulation, addressed solely to the eye, is 
proved by the large use of gestures to supplement the 
lacunas of a miserable speech among some degraded 
savage tribes ; as, for instance, the Delaware Indians, 
who count by raising their hands a certain number of 
times, striking them as many times as there are tens. 
With savages generally, quot membra, tot lingua ; and 
of course for the deaf and dumb an eye language is the 
only one that can exist. To them the 'parole manuelle'^ 
is the only possible or intelligible speech, as it undoubt- 
edly would be to the whole human race if the sense of 
hearing were to become extinct. And that such a lan- 

J Ov. Met. vi. 38 sqq. 

2 An expression of Jamet {Mem. sur Vlnstr. des Sourds-muets, p. lo)„ 
quoted by Charma, p. 187. Condillac called it ' langage de la danse.' 



74 OiS^ LAXGUAGE. ch. vi. 

guage would be most rapidly developed, and would be 
the same throughout the globe, appears certain from the 
fact that deaf mutes from different countries can at once 
converse together with freedom, when their speaking 
countrymen can hold no communication; — and that 
many signs, even some which apparently are quite arbi- 
trary,^ are mutually intelligible to the deaf mute and the 
savage. ^Elian- relates an amusino^ instance of such a 
result. The tyrant Tryzus, that he might repress all 
possible means of conspiracy, published an edict that 
his subjects were to hold do communication with each 
other, either in public or in private. The order was at 
once rendered nugatory by an extraordinary develop- 
ment of the power of expressing thought by signs and 
gestures. When even this mode of intercourse was for- 
bidden by the suspicious despot, one of the citizens 
went into the forum, and, without speaking a word, 
burst into a flood of tears. He was soon surrounded by 
a weeping multitude, who flew upon the tyrant and his 
bodyguard when he advanced to scatter them, and vin- 
dicated b}' his assassination their liberty of speech ! ^ 

In truth, gesture is a most eloquent and powerful 
exponent of emotion, and may add almost incredible 
force to the utterance of the tongue. ' Every passion 

' See some curious confirmations and instances of this in Marsh's 
Lectures, ed. Smith, p. 486. 

- Hist. Var. xiy. 22. 

3 See some excellent remarks in Marsh's Lectures, pp. 486-488. ' The 
language of gesture,' he says, ' is so well understood in Italy, that when 
Eang Ferdinand returned to Naples after the revolutionary movements 
of 1822, he made an address to the lazzaroni from the balcony of the 
palace, wholly by signs, which, in the midst of the most tumultuous 
shouts, were perfectly intelligible to his public. And it is traditionally 
affirmed that the famous conspiracy of the Sicilian vespers was organised 
wholly hj facial signs, not even the hand being employed." 



CH. VI. MODES OF EXPRESSIOX. 75 

of the heart,' says Cicero,^ ^ has its appropriate look, and 
tone, and gesture ; and the whole body of man, and his 
whole countenance, and all the voices he utters, reecho 
like the strings of a harp to the touch of every emotion 
in his soul.' ^ What would you have said had you heard 
the master himself ? ' exclaimed ^schines to the admir- 
ing Ehodians, who had just heard him read the mighty 
oration of Demosthenes on the Crown; and Demosthenes 
has doubtless told us one great secret of that eloquence 
which 

Fulmined o'er Greece, and siook the Arsenal 

To Maeedon, and Artaserxes' throne, 

when he defined gesticulation as the first, the second, 
and the third qualification of the successful orator. 
Who that in modern days has seen a Kemble or a 
Siddons, a Eachel, a Helen Faucit, or a Eistori, can be 
ignorant of what a language may be uttered by every 
motion and every look ? Yet it is probable that even 
the first of our modern actors falls short in this respect 
of the skill of the ancient pantomimes, of whose ' loqua- 
cissimse m^anus, linguosi digiti, silentium clamosum, ex- 
positio tacita,' Cassiodorus ^ gives so lively a description. 
These may have been the considerations which led 
Isaac Vossius deliberately to give the preference to ges- 
ticulation over language, and to regret that the whole 
human race does not banish 'the plague and confusion 
of so many tongues,' and adopt an universal and self- 
evident system of signs and pantomimic expression.^ 
'Nunc vero,' he continues, '^ita comparatum est ut 

' Be Oratore, iii. 216. 

- Var. iv. 51. 

^ Many an amusing story has been told of the faciHty with which by 
such means of expression Englishmen have travelled all over the con- 
tinent with no fragment of any language except their own. 



76 ON LANGUAGE. ch. vi. 

animalium, quae vulgo bruta credimtur, melior longe 
quam nostra hac in parte videatur conditio, utpote quae 
promptius et forsan felicius sensus et cogitationes suas 
sine interprete significent, quam ulli queant morta- 
^es (!), prsesertim si peregrino utatur sermone.'^ Idle 
as the complaint may be, it is founded on the fact that 
gesture is in many cases more rapid and intense in the 
effect which it produces than words themselves. The 
sidelong glance, the drooping lid, the expanded nostril, 
the curving lip are more instantaneously eloquent than 
any mere expression of disdain;^ and the starting eye- 
ball and open mouth tell more of terror than the most 
abject words. M. Charma tells an anecdote of the actor 
Talma that, disgusted at the disproportion of praise 
which was attributed to the words of the poets, by 
w^hich in the theatre he produced such thrilling effect, 
he one day, in the midst of a gay circle of friends, 
suddenly retreated a step, passed his hand over his fore- 
head, and gave to his voice and figure the expression of 
the profoundest despair. The assembly grew silent, pale, 
and shuddering, as though QEdipus had appeared among 
them, when, as by a lightning-flash, his parricide was 
revealed to him, or as though the avenging Furies had 
suddenly startled them with their gleaming torches. 
Yet the words which the actor spoke with that aspect 
of consternation and voice of anguish formed but the 
fragment of a nursery song, and the effects of action 
triumphed over those produced by words.^ 

' Is. Vossius, De Poematiim Cantu, p. 66, Oxon. 1673. It was the 
love of paradox, apparent in this passage, that led Charles II. to say of 
Voss that he believed everything except the Bible ! 

2 See Charma {Ess. sur le Lang. p. 21), who has treated this subject 
admirably. 

^ Garrick on rare occasions used, as he called it, ' to go his rounds,'. 



CH. VI. MODES OF EXPRESSION. 7? 

It is, however, easy to see that gesture could never 
be a perfect means of intercommunication. Energetic, 
rapid, and faithful, it is yet obscure because it is syl- 
leptic, i. e. it expresses but the most general facts of 
the situation, and is incapable of distinguishing or 
decomposing them, and wholly inadequate to express 
the delicate shades of difference of which every form of 
verbal expression is capable. The flashing of a glance 
may belie years of fulsome panegyric ; a sudden yawn 
may dissipate the effect of a mass of compliments 
poured out during hours of simulated interest ; an irre- 
pressible tear, a stolen and smothered sigh, the flutter 
of a nerve, or the tremble of a finger, may betray the 
secret of a life which no words could ever have re- 
vealed.^ The veiled and silent figure of Niobe may be 
more full of pathos than the most garrulous of wailing 
elegies. The wounds of the victor of Marathon, or the 
maimed figure of the brother of ^schylus, the unveiled 
bosom of Phryne, or the hand pointing to the Capitol 
which Manlius had saved, may have produced effects 
more thrilling than any eloquence; but such appeals 
were only possible at moments of intense passion, or 
under a peculiar combination of circumstances. The 

i. e. to make his face and gestures assume in succession the aspects 
produced by the whole round of passions and emotions, from simple good 
humour to that of profound despair. 

1 ' Whereto the Queen agreed 

With such and so unmoved a majesty 

She might have seemed her statue, but that he, 

Low-drooping till he well-nigh kissed her feet 

For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye 

The shadow of a 'piece of pointed lace, 

In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls, 

And parted, laughing in his courtly heart.' 

Tennyson, Idylls of the King, p. 208. 



78 OX LANGUAGE. ch. vi. 

ancient orators, well aware of the power which lies in 
these mute appeals, made them gradually ridiculous by 
the frequency with which they employed them; and the 
introduction of a weeping boy upon the rostrum would 
produce but little Aveight when many of the audience 
knew that weeping may express a wide variety of 
emotions, and when an injudicious question as to the 
obscure cause of those moving tears might elicit the 
mal-apropos complaint ' Se ex pcedagogo vellicarV^ 

In moments of extreme passion, then, a language of 
gesture, a language appealing to the eye rather than the 
ear, is not only possible but extremely powerful, and 
one which will never be entirely superseded. And pos- 
sibly some natures may be so sensitive, some faces so 
expressive, that even during the most peaceful and 
equable moments of life the passing thought may touch 
the countenance with its brightness or its gloom. But 
this could never be the case with any but a few; 
and even with these, what attention would be found 
equal to read and interpret, without fatigue, symbols 
and expressions so subtle and so fugitive? Moreover, 
to the blind, and to all during the darkness, and when- 
ever an opaque body intervened, and whenever the face 
was turned in another direction, such language would 
instantly become impossible. It is incapable of repre- 
senting the distinctness and successiveness of thought ; 
it is limited on every side by physical conditions ; it 
requires an attention too exclusive and intense ; it 
would reach a shorter distance,^ and appeal to a less 
spiritual sense. 

' ' Puer, quid fleret, interrogatiis, se ex psedagogo vellieari respondit.' 
Qmnt. vi. 1. On the adoption of tliis trick before the dikasteria, see 
Aristophanes, Vesj). 568-571. ' Charma, p. 51. Heyse, 29. 



CH. VI. MODES OF EXPKESSION. 79 

For though both Sight and Hearing are ideal senses, 
as distinguished from the inferior ones of touch, taste, 
and smell. Hearing is more ideal in its nature, and 
reaches more nearly to the soul than Sight. It is the 
clearest, liveliest, and most instantaneously affected 
of the senses. That which is seen is material,^ and 
remains in space, but that which is heard (although in 
reality as permanent and as corporeaJ) yet to our blunt 
senses has a purely ideal existence, and vanishes imme- 
diately in time. J^Hence sound is especially adapted to 
be the bearer, and the ear to be the receiver of thought, 
which is an activity requiring time for its successive 
developments, and is therefore well expressed by a 
succession of audible sounds. Juxtaposition in S'pace 
appealing to the eye could only remotely and analo- 
gously recall this succession in time. Moreover, hearing 
requires but the air, the most universal of all mediums, 
the most immediate condition of life; whereas the eye 
requires light as well, and is far more dependent on 
external accidents. The fact that even a sleeper is 
instantly awoke to consciousness by the tremor of his 
auditory nerve under the influence of the voice, is a 
proof of the impressive and immediate adaptability of 
sound to the exigencies of the intellectual life. So that 
hearing is the very innermost of the senses, and stands 
in the strictest and closest connection with our spiritual 
existence. The ear is the ever-open ^ gateway of the 
soul; and, carried on the invisible wings of sound,5 



' Heyse, 29 ; and see some beautiful remarks in Herder's Abhandlung 
ilher d. Urspr. d. Sprache, s. 101-108. 

2 Heyse, p. 31. 

3 "E-zrea Trrept^ej/ra, or (as Home Tooke called his famous work) 
language not only the vehicle of thought, but the wheels. 



80 OX LANGUAGE. ch. vi. 

there are ever thronging through its portals, in the 
guise of living realities, those things which of themselves 
are incorporeal and unseen. Wonderful, indeed, that a 
pulse of articulated air should be the only, or at any 
rate the most perfect means wherewith to express our 
thoughts ^ and feelings ! Without its incomprehensible 
points of union with all that passes in a soul which yet 
seems so wholly dissimilar from it, those thoughts and 
emotions could perhaps have no distinct existence — the 
exquisite organism of our hearing would have been 
rendered useless, and the entire plan of our existence 
would have remained unperfected ! /^^^---"^^ 

^ Herder, Meen zur Ciesch. d. Menschheit,^. 190. 



81 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOUND AS THE YEHICLE OF THOUaHT. 

* "Words are the sounds of the heart, and writings its pictures.' £„^' 

Yangtsee. 

A GREAT part of tlie world around us is inanimate and 
dumb ; yet such is the nature of all substances ^ that, 
by means of sound, we can interpret to the intellect their 
innermost peculiarity and constitution, even when light 
is absent, or the eye is most easily deceived. The 
inward shudder or oscillation of the component parts, 
even of lifeless objects, produced by any mechanical or 
external interference, betrays to us at once the degree 
of cohesion and homogeneity between the component 
particles, and some of their most general and necessary 
properties. There is, as might have been expected, a 
close analogy between the phenomena of Light and 
those of Sound. Thus Sound,^ in general, corresponds 
to Sheen; Clear Sound to Brightness; Echo to Reflexion; 
Noise, a confused indistinct sound, to Glimmer ; Clang, 
a steady, pure, homogeneous sound, to Gloiu; Tone, 
which is the element of music, and is derived from rslvo) 

* In the earlier part of this chapter I am mainly following the guidance 
of Heyse {Syst. d. Sprachwissensckaft, § 16), but I generally use my own 
words, because I have sometimes to amplify and more often to condense. 

2 Schall, Schein; Hall, Helle; "Wiederhall, Wiederschein; Gerausch, 
Schimmer or Geflimmer ; Klang, Glanz ; Ton, Farbe. 

G 



82 ON LANGUAGE. ch. vii. 

because it depends on the greater or lesser tension by 
which it is produced, corresponds to Colour^ and the 
relations between the different colours in a picture no 
less than those between the different intervals and 
harmonic relations of sound in music, are expressed by 
the word Tone. 

All these kinds of sound are produced out of lifeless 
substances by mechanical influence ; but they all differ 
from articulate sound, and from all sound which is the 
dynamic product of the animal organism. For sound, 
thus spontaneously produced, the Grermans reserve the 
word Laut, for which we have no exact English equi- 
valent, unless we choose a special sense of the word 
utterance. 

Voice {Stimme) is the capacity of dynamic sound- 
production, but in English is chiefly used of man alone. 
The lower order of animals, which have no lungs, and 
flsh, whose element is the water which is not a con- 
ductor of voice, are dumb. The higher animals have 
each their own utterance, by which they are recognisable, 
and by which they recognise each other. It has gene- 
rally been asserted, and it is repeated by Heyse, that 
we cannot speak properly of a language of animals, 
because their utterances only express a general con- 
sciousness of existence, or at the best but a few sensa- 
tions, a few longings and desires of the animal life 
{'^vxn)} which, even in their highest possible develop- 
ment — even in the song of the nightingale — cannot 
attain to the expression of anything individual. With 
this conclusion, so like a thousand other hasty assertions ^ 
of human dogmatism, it is not necessary to agree, but, 

' See a paper on ' The Distinction between Animals and Man,' in the 
Anthropological Eeview, No. 5. 



CH. VII. SOUND AS THE VEHICLE OF THOUGHT. 83 

in order not to break the continuity of the subject, I 
have relegated all further examination of it to another 
place. 

Man possesses a voice, — a capacity for the dynamic 
production of sound, — as a mere animal Being in the 
yet dark and unconscious slumber of natural Life. The 
new-born infant enters the world with a cry, which is a .^-^ 
mere natural sound, the expression of animal feeling, 
and is soon liable to various modifications for the pur- 
pose of expressing the different stirrings of life and 
sensation. These natural sounds are no more speech 
than the cries of animals are ; no human intelligence is 
expressed by them ; and the origin of rational language 
cannot be explained by them alone. They are inarti- 
culate and involuntary ; they are mere modifications of ^^ 
the breath, and do not express the thinking spirit. 
Nevertheless, they prove the possession of a high capa- 
city, and this capacity is developed by man into signi- 
ficant speech, as the expression of his highest and 
innermost nature. His voice, independently of the 
words it utters^ is capable, by natural flexibility, of 
expressing, every variation of emotion,, in all degrees of 
intensity; and by virtue of the penetrating nerve- 
shaking influence of sound upon the soul, it can convey 
to others a sympathy ^ with the same feelings, and the 
impression of a free activity. It instantly and involun- 
tarily stirs the attention of the hearer by an energy 
which, like that of the soul itself, is to the highest 

^ The power of influencing by the voice is found in all, but in very- 
different degrees. Eew had it in greater perfection than Dr. Chalmers, 
who, we are told, moved a whole congregation to tears by the few simple 
words ' It was because God was very good to him.' Every one has 
experienced the effect of what Lamartine beautifully calls ' the gift of 
tears in the voiced , 



84 OX LANGUAGE. ch. vii. 

degree varied, energetic, and effectual, yet is at the 
same time ideal and unseen. The voice, then, by a 
natural necessity, by an organic connection, is the organ 
of the understanding ; and speech is the expression of 
the thinking spirit in articul^e sounds. The union in 
sp^eh of sound and sense, the combination of the 
phonetic and the intellectual elements into one organic 
unity, will be the subject of our enquiry hereafter. At 
present we must say a few words on the mechanical 
means by which the emission of the voice is rendered 
possible. t. 

The voice of man is produced by a machinery far 
more exquisite ^ and perfect than that possessed by any 
other animal. The Larynx, with its cartilages and 
muscles, forms, in point of faci^a combination of 
musical instruments ; it is at once a trumpet, an' organ, 
a hautboy, a flageolet, and an ^olian harp. ' The air 
passing upwards and downwards through the larynx and 
trachea,^ forms its analogy with the wind-instruments; 
the vibration of the chordce vocales, its resemblance to* 
the stringed.' ^ The voice ^ is produce^d by the larynx, 
which is situated beneath the base of the tongue, and 
in front of the pharynx. The sides (^ the larynx are 
formed by the two large thyi'oid cartilages, which rest 
on the annular cricoid cartilage. On the upper surface 
of the back of the cricoid cartilage are mounted two 
small cartilaginous bodies, called the arytenoid, which 
are moveable in various directions by various muscles. 



1 Ladevi-Eoclie, Be V Orig. du Lang. p. 49 ; et ibi Bossuet, Con- 
naissanct de Dieu et de soi-raeme, p. 194. 

2 Hilles, Essentials of Fhysiology, p. 272. 

3 I have abridged this account from Dr. Carpenter's Animal Physio- 
logy (p. 528), generally using his o^tu words. 



CH. VII. SOUND AS THE VEHICLE OF THOUGHT. 85 

To these arytenoid cartilages are attached two ligaments 
of elastic fibrous substance, which pass forward to be 
attached to the front of the thyroid cartilage, where 
they meet in the same point. These are the instruments 
concerned in the production of sound, and also in the 
regulation of the aperture by which air passes into the 
trachea; and they are termed vocal chords. By the 
meeting of these ligaments in front, and their separation 
behind, the usual aperture has the form of a V ; but it 
may be narrowed by the drawing together of the ary- 
tenoid cartilages until the two vocal ligaments touch 
each other along their whole length, and the aperture 
is completely closed. In ordinary breathing the ary- 
tenoid cartilages are wide apart; but for vocal sounds 
it is necessary that the aperture should be narrowed, 
and that the flat sides rather than the edges of the vocal 
ligaments should be opposed to one another. When 
the ligaments are brought into position, by the contrac- 
tion of certain muscles, the air, in passing through the 
larynx, sets them in vibration, in a manner very much 
resembling that in which the reed of a hautboy or 
clarionet, or the tongue of an accordion or harmonium, 
is set in vibration by the current of air made to pass 
beneath them. The rapidity of the vibration, and 
consequently the pitch of the sound, depends on the 
deo^ree of tension of the vocal lio^aments.' ' When we 
reflect,' says Mr. Hilles,^ Hbat the range of the human 
voice will extend, although rarely, to the compass of 
two octaves, and that in this range are included, in some 
singers, as many as 2,000 minor tones, we shall form 
some idea of the extreme delicacy of motion, of which 
the laryngeal muscles are capable when fully educated,' 

^ Ubi sujpra, p. 275. 



86 ON LANGUAGE. ch. vii. 

The elementary sounds of whicti the voice is capable 
are about twenty in number,^ and it is easy to see that 
the permutations and combinations of these sounds are 
amply sufficient to provide the world with an infinite 
variety of languages. The elements of articulate sound 
are three — 1. The aspirate,^ which is a mere strength- 
ened expiration ; 2, The vowel sounds, produced by a 
continuous stream of air passing through the trachea, 
a,nd modified only by the form of the aperture through 
which they pass ; and 3. The consonants,^ for the utter- 
ance of which is required a partial or complete inter- 
ruption of the breath in its passage through the organs 
in front of the larynx. These are of two kinds, viz. 
those ^ of which the sound can be prolonged, and the 
explosive consonants (6, p, d, t, g, k), which require a 
total stoppage of the breath at the moment previous to 
their pronunciation, and which therefore cannot be 
prolonged. The sound of the former is modified by the 
position of the tongue, palate, lips, and teeth, and also 
by the degree in which the air is permitted to pass 
through the nose. 

^ Harris, Hermes, ii. 2, 3rd ed. p. 325. 

2 Heyse, p. 74. In pp. 78, 79 Heyse traces what he supposes to be 
the natural connection of the vowels with various emotions ; he admits, 
however, that language in its firtal stage confuses and neglects these 
primitive relations of sound to emotion, and makes the vowels mere signs 
in the service of the free understanding. Hence it is in interjections and 
other primitive words that we must study their original value. But 
alike for vowels and for consonants sueh enquiries seem to me both 
dubious and difficult. 

^ Hence it is in the use of consonants, speaking generally, that the 
sounds uttered by animals differ from the articulate human voice. 
Aristotle speaks of ot aypd/x/xaroL \i/6(f)0L oTov Q-qpiwv, Trohl. xi. 57. They 
have but one or two consonants at most. Id. x. 39. E, for instance, is 
called ' litera canina.' ' Irritata canis quod rr quam plurima dicit.' 
Lueilius. ' K is for the dog.' Shaks. 

* Carpenter, I. c. 



CH. VII. SOU^^D AS THE VEHICLE OF THOUGHT. 87 

Now, the natural sensuous life expresses itself in three 
kinds of natural sound, viz.. Interjections, Imitations, 
and those sounds, expressive of some desire, which in 
imitation of the Grerman Lautgeberden ^ we may roughly 
designate as vocal gestures. Aspirates and vowels are 
generally sufficient to express the mere passing emotions 
of the natural life ; consonants are more the expres- 
sion of the free intelligence. Interjections are the arbi- 
trary expression of subjective impressions ; Imitations 
advance a step farther, spontaneously reproducing some- 
thing which has influenced the senses from without ; 
Lautgeberden, though like ^jiterjections they have their 
source in the subject, are not a mere utterance of 
passive sensation, but an energetic expression of will, 
though as yet only in the form of desire. 

At present, it will be observed, we are only dealing 
with the elements of articulate speech ; the natural 
sounds out of which, by the aid of the understanding, 
perfect language is developed, and which in themselves 
are the mere expressions of animal feeling. In tracing 
the physical development of sound which corresponds to 
the psychical development of thought, we have not yet 
got beyond the means of finding vent for the sensuous 
impression, or at most the conscious perception. We 
have not even arrived at the root, which corresponds, in 
the development of sound, to the intuition (Anschauung) 
in the development of thought. The word which cor- 
responds to the representation (Yorstellung) is beyond 
the vocal elements which we have yet reached. The 
further steps of the Process?, which are as yet unex- 
plained, will become evident as we proceed- 

^ Heyse, p. 71. 



88 0^ LANGUAGE. 



CHAPTEK VIIL 

INTEKJECTIONS. 

'^s SLSdaKei 'EiriKovpos — (pvaet ecrl ra ovS/xaTa, aTroppri^avTOiV twv irpdjrwv 
avQpunTwv rivas (pcopas Kara tuv irpayixdrcDv. — Obig. c. Cels. i. 24. 

The theories of the interjectional and onomatopoetic 
origin of language are not in reality different^ and both 
of them might without impropriety he classed under 
the latter name; for, in point of fact, the impulsive 
instinct to reproduce a sound is precisely analogous to 
that which gives vent to a sensation by an interjection. 
"WTien we see a person laugh or yawn we can hardly help 
following their example, not from an instinct of imi- 
tation, but from a nervous sympathy ; and the same 
nervous sympathy ^ forces a child to reproduce any 
sudden sound which is not beyond its power of articula- 
tion, as any one may see who cares to try the experi- 
ment. This result, no less than the utterance of a cry 
of joy or pain, arises from a purely physical cause, 
namely, the general influence on the nerves communi- 
cated to the delicate organs by which the voice is 
produced. The reason why children and savages are 
more given to imitative and interjectional sounds is 
because of the greater delicacy and sensibility of their 

^ Wiillner, Ueber d. Urspr. d. Spracke, p. 6, fg, ; Poggel, Ueber das 
Verhaltniss zwischen Form und Bedeutung, § 5, . 



CH. VIII. INTERJECTIONS. 89 

nervous organisation. Nevertheless, while aware of 
this fact, I have preferred, for the sake of clearness, to 
treat separately of these two phonetic elements; and 
first of Interjections. 

Interjections^ are of two kinds; namely, 

1. Those which are caused by some inward sensation, 
such as the cry of anguish, and the exclamation of joy ; 
sounds of the voice, which are neither definite in origin 
nor distinct in articulation, but are perfectly vague both 
as to the form they assume and the source from which 
they arise ; and, 

2. Those which are evoked by some external im- 
pression, especially by perceptions of the ideal senses, 
sight and hearing. These stand on a higher stage than 
the last. They do not indeed, like imitations, express 
the external character of the thing perceived, but the 
inward excitement of the soul in consequence of the 
perception, whether it assume the form of astonishment, 
pleasure, surprise, disgust, or fear. In these the sound 
of the voice receives a more specific limitation, and 
vowels and aspirates are distinctly uttered. 

We do not purpose to trace in the half- obliterated 
records of language the natural connection between 
particular vowel-sounds and particular sensations ; but 
it seems clear that by the very constitution of man 
certain sounds are the natural and almost necessary 
exponents of certain conditions. There are certain 
'inarticulate bursts of feeling not reacted on by the 

^ Heyse, p. 72, § 27. There is some meaning in the verse of Dr. King : 
' Nature in many tones complains, 
Has many sounds to tell her pains ; 
But for her joys has only three, 
And those but small ones, Ha ! ha ! he ! ' 



90 ON LAIS^GUAGE. ch. viii. 

mind.' ^ THs will appear at a glance if we compare 
the interjections of a Semitic with those of an Aryan 
language, and observe their almost complete identity. 
Thus, for instance, the nn, nx, and nnt? which occur in the 
Hebrew of the Bible (Ez. xxx. 2, vi. 11 ; Mic. ii. 7), are 
the same expressions of astonishment, fear, pleasure, or 
indignation which we find in the Latin hahe, aha, &c., 
and which in so many Aryan dialects are worn down to 
the mere of the vocative case. The ^in is ' the obscure 
deep sound of seriousness, of threatening, or lamenta- 
tion,' and is therefore like the Grreek ovaly the Latin 
heu, eheu, vae in different circumstances.^ The more 
definite expression of lamentation, "inin (Am. v. 16), 
offers an obvious analogy to the Latin ohe, while the 
^in^^ (Prov. xxiii. 29), ^D (Ez. ii. 10), and 'hb^ (Mic. 
vii. 1 ; Job x. 15), are almost identically the same 
with al^oL, papse, phui, sksXsv, and even the Irish 
whilleleu ! We find the same exclamations. Ha ! ha ! for 
surprise, Au-e ! for sorrow, Abah ! for disgust, among 
the !N"ew Zealanders ; ^ and the Australian Ala ! dif- 
fers little either in sound or meaning from the English 
Halloo ! 

Latin is particularly rich in genuine interjections ; 
and, besides this, Latin, Grreek, English, and nearly all 
languages have a number of words which, although used 
interjectionally, are not really to be classed under this 
head, like the Hebrew Thhr}, ^t] 'ysvovTo, ' Grod forbid ! ' 
Such are the Latin malum ! nefas ! macte ! amabo ! 
age, sodes, sis, nae, profecto, &c., some of which are 

^ Ewald's Hebrew Grammar, § 440. 

2 See, too, Glass, Phil. Sacr. lib. iv. tract. 8. 

3 Ch. Miss, Soc. New Zealand Gram. p. 57. Threlkeld's Austral. 
Gram. p. 20. 



CH. viH. INTEKJECTIONS. 91 

verbs, and some are adverbs. Such too are the Grreek 
d'ye, (j)sps, t6t, djpet, Ssvrs, &c., and the English strange ! 
hark ! adieu ! welcome ! the deuce ! Very many of such 
spurious interjections are explicable by some ellipse ; 
they are in fact abbreviated sentences as much as the 
single letter (or «) for ov, ' not ! ' with which the poet 
Philoxenus ^ is said to have replied in writing to the 
tyrant Dionysius, who had invited him to the court of 
Syracuse. Under this head fall a large number of 
abbreviated oaths and exclamations, such as eccere, 
epol, mehercle, medius fidius, for per sedem Cereris, 
Pollucis ; ita me Hercules, Dins filius, juvet, &c.^ 

The G-reeks, not very accurately, reckoned interjec- 
tions under the head of adverbs ; the Latins, correctly 
observing that the interjection is, as it y^ ere, flung into 
the sentence (inter jacio), and is quite capable^ of 
expressing some emotion even if no verb be added, 
placed them separately as a distinct part of speech. 
This classification has given rise to the most amusing 
vehemence of argument. The interjection, it is asserted, 

^ Egger, Notions Mem. de Gram. Comp. p. 103. It is curious to see 
how a spurious interjection like Alas ! which comes from the exclamation 
Ai lassa, ' ah, me weary ! ' in the songs of the ProTen9al troubadours, is 
nerer used by the common people. They instinctively recognise its 
artificial and aristocratic origin, just as they substitute 'the Fall,' 
* Harvest,' &e., for the only Latin name of a season, Autumn. 

2 Energetic brevity is indispensable to an interjection ; hence, in all 
languages oaths assume a curt form, as morbleu = par la mort de Dieu; 
'zooks,' by Grod's looks; 'zounds,' by God's wounds, &c. 

^ Priscian says, ' Interjection em G-raeei inter adverbia ponunt,' and adds 
that the Roman grammarians separated the interjection, ' quia videtur 
affectum habere in sese verbi, et plenam motus animi significationem, 
etiamsi non addatur verbum, demonstrare.' xv. 7. Quintilian (Instt. 
Or. i. 4) mentions the rearrangement of the parts of speech by the 
Romans, who had no article, — and he adds, 'Sed accedit superioribus 
inter] ectio.' 



92 01^ LANGUAGE. oh. viii. 

is incapable of grammatical analysis, and belonging to 
the inarticulate cries and sounds of instinctive lan- 
guage it is also incapable of etymology, and stands in 
no syntactical relation to the rest of the sentence. 
Home Tooke bewails that ' the brutish inarticulate In- 
terjection, which has nothing to do with speech, and is 
only the miserable refuge of the speechless, has been per-^^ 
mitted, because beautiful and gaudy ^ to usurp a place 
amongst words, and to exclude the Article from its well- 
earned dignity.' And when asked 'Why such bitterness 
against the interjection?' he replies, 'Because the 
dominion of speech is erected upon the doivnfall of 
interjections. Without the artful contrivances of lan- 
guage, mankind would have nothing but interjections 
with which to communicate, orally, any of their feelings. 
The neighing of a horse, the lowing of a cow, the bark- 
ing of a dog, the purring of a cat, sneezing, coughing, 
groaning, shrieking, and every other involuntary con- 
vulsion with oral sound, have almost as good a title to 
be called parts of speech as interjections have (!). 
Voluntary interjections are only employed when the 
suddenness and vehemence of some affection or passion 
returns men to their natural state, and makes them for 
a moment forget the use of speech ; or when from some 
circumstance the shortness of time will not permit them 
to exercise it. And in books they are only used for 
embellishments, and to mark strongly the above situa- 
tions. But where speech can be employed they are 
totally useless, and are always insufficient for the pur- 
pose of communicating our thoughts. And, indeed, 
where will you look for the Interjection ? Will you find 
it amongst laws, or in books of civil institutions; in 
history, or in any treatise of useful arts or sciences ? 



CH. VIII. INTERJECTIONS. 93 

Nc. You must seek for it in rhetoric and poetry, in 
novels, plays, and romances.' 

Neither the energy of this passage, nor the endorse- 
ment of it by Professor Max Muller as ' an excellent 
answer to the interjectional theory,' move us at all.^ 
Whether, indeed, grammarians choose to rank the 
Interjection as a part of speech or not, is a matter of 
great indifference, although the fact that they are re- 
gularly declinable in Basque ^ shows that their unsyntac- 
tical character is merely an accident of language. But 
at any rate, on the confession of the adversary, they do 
not deserve all this scorn. We do not assert that a 
mere interjectional cry has of itself attained to the 
dignity of language, but that, like the imitation of 
natural sounds, it was a stepping-stone to true lan- 
guage, both by suggesting the idea of articulate speech 
and by supplying a large number, if not the entire 
number of actual roots, I desire no better illustration 
of this than the one which Professor Miiller has sug- 
gested. *Even,' he says, 'if the scream of a man who 
has his finger pinched should happen to be identically 
the same as the French helas, that scream would be an 
effect, an involuntary effect of outward pressure, whereas 

^ I cannot see ani/ force in the objection that 'if the constituent ele- 
ments of speech were mere cries, &c., it would be dij9S.cult to understand 
why brutes should be without language.' — Max Miiller, Lectures, i. 355. 
Obviously, as has been observed a thousand times, the mere power of 
articulation is not the source of language {Orig. of Lang. pp. 79, 164). 
Half the arguments aimed at the interjectional and onomatopoetic theories 
altogether miss their mark by not observing that all which those theories 
profess to explain is the cause which guided man in the choice of words 
to express thought. There would be force in the objection if we held 
with Hamann that speech is the ' Deipara unserer Vernunft ;' or with 
Shelley, that ' He gave man speech, and speech created thought' 

2 Mentioned doubtfully by Mr. Marsh. — Lectures, ed. Smith, p. 197. 



<)4 OX LANGUAGE. ch. viii. 

an interjection like alas! helas, Italian lasso, to say 
nothing of such words as pain, suffering, agony, &c., is 
there by the free will of the speaker meant for some- 
thing, used with a purpose, chosen as a sign.' 

Precisely! but is that any reason why we should 
despise the word helas, or ridicule the theory which 
points out that in the supposed instance the interjection 
luould have been the source, the root, the origin of the 
word ? Undoubtedly the cry of pain, as such, is not a 
word, but is a mere physical expression of pain due to 
the reflex action of the animal soul upon the organs of 
speech; but this cry, by the law of association, when 
repeated recalls the feeling itself; it becomes therefore 
first a symbol, and then a sign of the feeling ; it stands 
for our subjective intuition (Anschauung) of the feeling, 
and thereby at once isWevatedfrom a sound to a word, 
becoming, in fact, as much a word as any other, because 
it stands in precisely the same relation to the thing 
which it signifies. In fact, it stands, if anything, on a 
higher grade of dignity than any ordinary word, because 
its significance is more absolute and immediate. Let 
us, for instance, reject the purely artificial word ^alas! ' 
and take the natural interjection ah ! ach ! and we have 
at once not merely the probable, but the absolutely 
certain^ root of a very large class of ivords in the 
Aryan languages, such as ax^^^ achen, ache, anguish, 
anxious, angustiis, and the word agony itself. AATien 
this fact is a little more widely expanded and illustrated, 
we have the interjectionaP iheonj proved, Indepen- 

1 Cf. Wedg^vood, Etym. Diet. i. p. xii. See a list of the derivatiTes 
from the root in Garnett, Ess. on Engl. Dialects, p. 64. 

2 M. Miiller, Lectures, ii. 88. We see no great objection, and abso- 
lutely no ambiguity, in the words ' onomatopoetic ' and ' interjectional ' ; 



CH. VIII. INTEEJECTIONS. 95 

dently of the many and wise students who have accepted 
it, it is a theory for which most important arguments 
may be adduced, and therefore is not one which either 
can be or deserves to be sneered out of notice by a 
mere nickname, such as that over which so many who 
are ignorant of the very rudiments of the subject have 
complacently chuckled. 

Professor Miiller himself admits that ' with interjec- 
tions some kind of language could ^ have been formed ; ' 
and when we have shown at least the extreme probability 
that a very large portion of existing language has had 
such an origin, surely all a 'priori objections must fall to 
the ground. If the science of Comparative Philology 
is to do nothing more than 

To chase 
A panting syllable tlirougli time and space, 
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark 
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark ; — 

and if in that venerable receptacle for all ethnogra- 
phic and philological theories we can only catch an 
archaeological curiosity in the shape of some desiccated, 
never-spoken, lifeless ' root,' we cannot but think that 
it was hardly worth the trouble of being pursued ! An 
etymology of this kind is no etymology at all. What 
are we the wiser for being told that a whole class of 
words comes from a root ' il,' to go, and another class 
from a root ' ar,' to plough ? If this be all, one is some- 
what weary of the information when it comes, unless, 
indeed, which of course often is the case, one has been 
rewarded during the search by the discovery or obser- 

and we can assure Prof. Miiller that, so far as we know, no one has 
accepted the word ' Imsonic ' except the learned suggestor ! 
^ Lectures, i. 353. 



96 ON LANGUAGE. ch. vi:i. 

vation of other linguistic or phonetic laws. Still, if 
these be regarded as ultimate etymologies, they throw 
no light whatever on questions which we must regard 
as soluble, as interesting, and as important, viz. what 
is the origin of words ? Why were sounds chosen as 
the signs of all things which can become the object of 
thought ? and why were special sounds chosen in parti- 
cular cases ? To all these questions the interjection al 
and imitative theories " are adequate, — up to a certain 
point, — to furnish us with intelligent and valuable 
answers ; they throw a light on the germs and on the 
development of language, and they furnish a clear ex- 
planation of the origin and history of words in so many 
cases that we may fairly argue the existence of similar 
principles, even in the cases where the wear and tear of 
language have broken many important links in the 
chain of evidence. To refer words to some dry ' root,' 
which confessedly was never used in the intelligent 
speech of articulately speaking men, and to leave this 
root without any attempt at further explanation, is to 
offer us a caput mortuumi as the prize of our researches, 
and to abandon unnecessarily, as beyond our reach, 
many of the deepest problems of language and of human 
history. If, for instance (to recur to previous examples),^ 
a large class of words came from the root ' ach,' and 
another large class from the root ^dhu,' and if the 
former be an interjection, and the latter an onoma- 
topoeia, we have got at final facts which give a new 
"meaning and interest to the history of the derivatives 
from these roots ; but if we are told that a large family 
of words come from ' ar,' or ' ga,' or * sal ; ' and if about 

1 Origin of Lang. p. 109, 



CH. VIII. INTERJECTIONS. 97 

^ ar,' and ' ga,' and ' sal,' nothing more can be said, then 
what have we learnt ? The roots are mere mysterious 
nonentities, which have taught us nothing and come 
from nowhere. The earth rests on the back of an 
elephant, and the elephant stands on a tortoise; but 
what does the tortoise stand upon ? 

But in point of fact it has repeatedly occurred to 
me that Professor Miiller really does agree to a very 
great extent with the theories which he often seems to 
repudiate; in other w^ords that the argument is in 
great measure due to mutual misapprehension. For in 
his new volume he ^ wishes to stand entirely neutral ' 
with regard to the theory that all roots were originally 
onomatopoeias or interjections (p. 92),^ demanding only 
that the derivatives should be drawn according to the 
strictest rules of comparative grammar. If this be so, 
we entirely agree with him; so far from wishing to 
arrive at derivations per saltum and ^undo all the 
work that has been done by Bopp, Humboldt, Grrimm, 
and others during the last fifty years,' the majority, at 
any rate, of those who hold the sneeringly termed Pooh- 
pooh and Bow-wow theories to be both valuable and true, 
have always felt the profound est respect and gratitude 
to those great men, and the keenest appreciation of the 
immortal discoveries which have resulted from their 
labours. 

The opponents of these theories constantly try to 
depreciate them by asserting that Interjections are 
purely animal, and Onomatopoeias either vulgar or 
childish. Now, as applied to their primitive condition. 



^ Cf. also ii. 314, where he allows a possibly onomatopoeic origin to 
the root Mar which he traces through so many stages. 

H 



98 ON LANGUAGE. ch. vin. 

their first stage, this language is capable of some sort 
of meaning. Nobody asserted that they were language, 
but only that they are the raw material of it. They are 
the steps by which man mounts to true language ; they 
are 

the ladder 
Whereto the climher-npward turns his face ; 
But when he once attains the utmost round, 
He then unto the ladder turns his back, 
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
By which he did ascend. 

If, as we are convinced, they helped to suggest the 
very idea of speech, and supplied man in part with the 
sounds which his tongue could modulate, and the plastic 
influence of his intellect could mould, it is surely un- 
gracious to turn round and insult them as ' brutish and 
inarticulate.'^ 

And this, in the present instance, is the more 
unreasonable and inexcusable, because, as we have seen 
already, many interjections have passed unaltered into 
the domain of finished language.^ They have their own 
province in the kingdom of speech, and if it be not 
universal, it is at least as noble as any other province. 
If they appear but seldom, — as Home Tooke scornfully 
observes, — in Law or History or Science, they are yet 
capable of adding both power and beauty to rhetoric, 
poetry, and the drama, and are entitled therefore to a 
splendid position in the domain of literature. Feeling 
and passion, no less — perhaps we might say far more — 
than logic and abstract thought, demand their proper 

^ A long list of words — and words full of tragic grandeur — might be 
adduced which come immediately and professedly from interjections ; 
such as olixw(w, aldCco, oAoAu^w, dAaAa^w, ululo, ejulo, &c. 



CH. VIII. INTERJECTIONS. 9^ 

exponents in the Speech of Man, and it can hardly be 
correct to rank no higher than the purring of a cat, or 
the neighing of a horse, the expressions which give vent 
and utterance to the most passionate emotions in the 
instant of their most overwhelming power. ^ Mr. Marsh 
has reminded us that the interjections of Whitfield, 
^ his Ah ! of pity for the unrepentant sinner, his Oh ! of 
encouragement and persuasion for the almost converted 
listener, formed one of the great excellences of his 
oratory ; ' ^ and as in a former volume I endeavoured to 
redeem the onomatopoetic element of language from 
the charge of vulgarity by collecting many remarkable 
passages to show that onomatopoeia often added a sin- 
gular charm to the loftiest and loveliest passages of the 
greatest poets, so it would be easy to redeem Interjec- 
tions from similar injustice by the same process. Take 
but passages like these : — ' They shall not lament for 
him, saying Ah ! my brother, or ah ! sister. They 
shall not lament for him, sajring Ah lord! or Ah his 
glory!' — or the passionate outbreak, ^Thus saith the 
Lord, the Lord of hosts, . . . Ah ! I will ease me of 
mine adversaries.' And not to add many other Biblical 
apostrophes, who does not know Wordsworth's touching 
lines ? — 

She lived unknowB, and few could know 

When Lucy ceased to be, 
But she is in her grave, — and oh ! 

The difference to me ! 

Any one acquainted with poetry will remember how 
many exquisite passages owe, to an interjection, their 

1 ' Echo des emotions profondes de I'ame, 1' interjection traduit 1' affec- 
tion du moment, de la minute, plus fidelement que toutes les descriptions 
ne pourraient le faire.' Chavee, Lcs Lan^ics et les Races, p. 17. 

2 Lectures^ p. 196. 

TT 2 



100 OjS" language. ch. viii. 

beauty and their pathos. It was probably a lurking 
sense of some such truth that led Home Tooke to say 
that they were ^beautiful;' what he means by the 
qualification that they are also ^ gaudy,' I can but dimly 
conjecture. 

Sanctius^ loftily relegates Interjections from the 
region of speech with a dictum of Aristotle that ^ all 
parts of speech must be originated by convention, not 
by nature.' Now Interjections, he says, are natural, 
because they are found among all, resembling in fact 
the cries of birds and animals. Passing over for the 
present the arrogant assumption, which runs through 
such vast portions of human reasoning, that everything 
pertaining to man must differ in hind no less than in 
degree from its analogon among brutes, we may observe 
that the naturalness of interjections, — their independ- 
ence of what Home Tooke calls 'the artful contriv- 
ances of language,' — their truthfulness, and simplicity, 
and freedom from the degraded conditions by which 
language is made subservient to the concealment of 
thought, — is in fact one of their chief glories. Another 
of their remarkable properties, 'which not^ only vindi- 
cates their claim to be regarded as constituents of lan- 
guage, but entitles them unequivocally to a high rank 
among the elements of discourse,' is the inherent and 
independent expressiveness, by which we may condense 
into a single ejaculated monosyllable all, and more than 
all, of a whole sentence ; — condense it too with an im- 
pressiveness which no mere sentence can emulate. And 
again, the interjection is ^subjectively connected with 

1 Sanctius, Minerva,»\. 2. See Harris, Hermes, ii. 5. Home Tooke, 
Div. of Purley, i. 5. • 

2 Marsh, Lectures, p. 194. 



CH. viTi. INTERJECTIONS. 101 

the passion or sensation it denotes, and is not so much 
the enunciation or utterance of the emotion, as symp- 
tom and evidence of it,'' — in other words it is subjective 
not objective, expressive not descriptive, and therefore 
may be rightfully considered as * the appropriate lan- 
guage, the mother-tongue of passion.' Eegarded from 
this point of view, it stands on a higher rather than a 
lower grade than the other constituents of human speech. 

If we look to savage nations as displaying to us a 
picture of the infancy of man, w^e shall expect to trace 
some of the earliest and most important facts of speech 
exemplified in their languages. We have seen already 
how prominent a part Onomatopoeia plays in those lan- 
guages; nor is Interjection less predominant. The 
exclamations used by the excitable Indians, the Kafirs^ 
or the New-Zealanders, are beyond all comparison more 
rich and varied than those used by more advanced 
nations. It is undoubtedly one of the effects of civi- 
lisation to diminish the impressionable excitability of 
untutored races; and as excitability finds in interjections 
its most natural utterance, we naturally expect to find 
them more numerous among primitive races, and we 
may reasonably suppose that at the dawn of humanity 
the interjectional element provided a larger^ number of 
roots than it now could do. 

The ancients had some remarkable stories which show 
how fully they felt that utterance is the spontaneous 
and almost inevitable means for the expression of emo- 
tion. For instance, Herodotus^ and other historians 

* The very words S'prechen, sprache are etymologically connected with 
brechen (cf. fragor, frangere, p-fiywixi), and like the phrases prj^at (pcaviiv, 
rumpere vocem (Herod, i, 85 ; Virg. jEn. ii. 129), imply the interjectional 
outburst of speech. See Heyse, p. 114. 

2 Herod, i. 85. Cic. J)iv. i. 53, &c. 



[y^'\02 ox LANGUAGE. ch. viii. 

tell us how the dumb son of Croesus burst out with an 
articulate voice for the first time when he saw a soldier 
on the point of assassinating his father. Aulus Grellius 
relates a story that ^gles, a dumb Samian athlete/ 
seeing that he- was being cheated by a deceitful lot in a 
sacred contest, cried out with a loud voice, and from 
that time recovered the power of speech. Pausanias has 
a similar anecdote about Battus of Cyreue, who first got 
•over his impediment of speech in consequence of the 
horror caused by suddenly catching sight of a lion in 
the African desert. We are inclined to consider that 
these stories are not w^holly fabulous, and at any rate 
we have heard a perfectly authentic instance of a lady, 
who for years had lost her voice, and who recovered it in 
consequence of the shock caused by a sudden emotion. 
She had been riding up a hill in Ireland, and being in 
advance of the rest of the party, came suddenly and 
■unexpectedly on an exceedingly glorious view. Turning 
round eagerly to signify her delight, she found that the 
sudden effort had restored loudness and clearness to her 
voice, and from that time forward experienced no 
difficulty in speaking, although for a very long period 
she had only been able to use an inarticulate whisper. 
Expression, then, by a law of nature, is the natural and 
spontaneous result of impression ; and however merely 
animal in their nature the earliest exclamations may 
have been, they were probably the very first to acquire 
the dignity and significance of reasonable speech, be- 
cause in their case more naturally than in any other 
the mere repetition of the sound would, by the associa- 
tion of ideas, involuntarily recall the sensation of which 

1 Aul. Gell V. 9. VaL Max. i. 8. 



CH. VIII. INTERJECTIONS. l03 

the sound was so energetic and instantaneous an expo- 
nent. In the discovery of this simple law, tuhich a very 
feiu instances would reveal to the mind of man, lay 
the discovery of the Idea of Speech. The divine secret 
of language, — the secret of the 'possibility of perfectly 
expressing the unseen and immaterial by an articula- 
tion of air which se&med to have no analogy with it, — 
the secret of accepting sounds as the exponents and 
signs of everything * in the choir of heaven and furniture 
of earth,' — lay completely revealed in the use of two or 
three despised interjections ! ^ To borrow a simile from 
the eloquent pages of Herder, they were the sparks of 
Promethean fire which kindled language into life.^ — — ^ 

* The objection 'Why, then, did not animals also discover language?' 
rises so often from the grave where it was long since buried, and appears 
to be endowed with such inextinguishable vitality, that we must agai7i 
repeat that it was not the mere possession of these vocal cries that 
enabled man to invent a language, but that, the Innate Idea of language 
being already in his mind by virtue of his divinely- created organism, the 
possession of these natural sounds taught him how, and supplied him 
the materials wherewith, to develop the Idea into perfect speech. 
We entirely agree with the remark of Wilh. von Humboldt, ' Die Sprache 
liesse sich nicht erfinden, wenn nicht ihr Typus in dem menschlichen 
Verstande schon vorhanden ware.' Ueher d. Verschied. d. menschl. 
Sprachhaues, p. 60. The same thing has been said from the beginning. 
rh 5e rots oven ffrj^auTiKas (pwvas eepevpiffKeiv Koi irpoffrjyopias, rcSv audpcoTrcav 
elvai Tuv T^v \oyiK7]v Svvafxiv Oeddev 4v eourots /ce/CTrj^eyoiv, 
K.T.K. Grreg. Nyss. Contra Eunom. xii. p. 848. 



104 ON LANGUAGE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LAUTGEBEEDEN, OK VOCAL GESTUEES. 

' Isis et Harpocrates digito qui significat st ! ' 

Vet. Poeta op. Varr. L. L. iv. 10. 

So far as I am aware, Professor Heyse, in his * System 
der Sprachwissenschaft,' was the first to distinguish 
accurately between interjections which are the signs of 
individual emotion beginning and ending with the 
utterer, and which are in fact a concentrated soliloquy, 
and those which, like visible gestures, convey meaning 
to some other person, and generally intimate a desire or 
command. It was certainly Heyse who first ^ called the 
latter by the expressive and picturesque name of Laut- 
geberden or Begehrungslaute, vocal gestures or sounds 
of desire, like sti ps ! sch! and to animals brr! He 
called them by this name both because they are often 
connected with gestures, and because they can be repre- 
sented by them ; as st ! by the finger on the lips, &c.^ 
Such in English are tush ! pish ! pshaw ! pooh ! which 
are expressive of contempt or aversion, and can only be 
conceived of as addressed to another ; hush! hist!^ mum ! 

^ See Sit/st. der Sprach. p. 29. ^ Die Lautgeherden. So nenne ich 
solche, zum Theil consonantische und dabei nicht syllabisclie Laute,' &c, 

2 Compare the French zest ' interjection, qui ne se prend que dans 
cette acception proverbiale, " entre le zist et le zest,^^ ' i. e. ' middling.' 

^ M. Nodier observes that it would hardly be supposed that etymo- 
logists could be found who derived st ! from ' silentixim iJene.' ' Cela est 



CH. IX. LAUTGEBERDEN, OR VOCAL GESTURES. 105 

bark ! halloo ! hip, &c. ; and of this nature are many of 
the exclamations addressed to animals. ^ Among them,' 
says Mr. Marsh, ^ who does not however refer to Heyse, 
* are all the isolated, monosyllabic, or longer words by 
which we invite or repel the approach, and check or 
encourage the efforts of others ; in short, all single 
detached articulations intended to influence the action 
or call the attention of others, but not syntactically 
connected with a period.' 

This class of interjections rises, in three respects, 
above those previously noticed ; — first, because they are 
mainly consonantal, and therefore approach more nearly 
than the others, — in which consonants play a very sub- 
ordinate part, — to the complicated articulations of 
human speech; secondly, because they have for their 
object, not merely expression, but cow/munication ; and 
thirdly, because they do not originate in a mere passive 
feeling, but are, as has been already noticed, the ener- 
getic utterance of desire or will, and are spontaneous 
lather than involuntary. They hardly attain to the 
dignity of Language because they express no thought, 
and are the utterance rather of the feeling life than of 
the thinking spirit ; yet they, in common with the other 
natural sounds which we have mentioned, correspond to 
a new step in the development of the human intelli- 
gence. The Interjection corresponds to the dawn of 
sensation; the mere Imitation is an analogon of the 
word into which it almost immediately passes ; the 
Vocal gesture is an analogon ^ of the sentence, especially 
of the imperative sentence (compare st ! with the Latin 

cependant vrai, ear il n'y a point d'idee bizarre dont ce genre d' erudition 
ne puisse ofirir un exemple.' Bid. p. 87. 

* Marsh, Lectures, p. 196. ^ Heyse, p. 73, 



106 OX LANGUAGE. ch. ix. 

sta !). And thus in the sphere of the natural life, the 
three chief steps in the development of Intellect and 
Language are foreshadowed or represented. 

To recapitulate a little. Impressions affecting the 
senses produced a physical effect on the organs of sound, 
and thereby provoked interjectional expressions ; the 
repetition of these expressions recalled, by the law of 
association, the impressions of which they were the 
utterance, and recalled them not only in the mind of 
the speaker but also of the hearer. Hence the Inter- 
jection served as a sign, and could be recalled by the 
intellect, no less than the impression by the memory. 
Here, then, we are at once furnished with all the 
elements or requirements of ^speech, namely impres- 
sions producing sensations, sensations becoming repre- 
sentations (Yorstellungen), and representations expressed 
by signs. Thought receives its life from Sensation, and 
Language receives from the interjectional elements its 
capability of being intuitively understood. Is any 
other origin of speech conceivable ? ^ Speech results 
from the combined working of the Intellect and the 
Senses, and no part of speech more directly and imme- 
diately illustrates this united activity of the Senses and 
the Intellect than the Interjection. Is it then strange 
that Interjections should become as it were the tap-root 
of all Language ? If we extend the meaning of ' Inter- 
jection' to embrace the imitations of all spontaneous 
sounds expressive of physical conditions, — not only the 
natural sounds of wrath, horror, disgust, &c., but those 
which express the sounds of yawning, sneezing, licking, 
heavy breathing, shuddering, &c., — then the words im- 

^ See on the whole subject F. Wiillner, Ueb. d. Urspr. d. Sprache. 
Miinster, 1838 {passim). 



CH. IX. LAUTGEBERDEN, OR VOCAL GESTURES. 107 

mediately reducible to this origin may be counted by- 
hundreds ; and if to these we add their derivatives, they 
may perhaps be counted by thousands. And this is 
equivalent to saying that they alone can form a lan- 
guage; for be it remembered that even the Bible itself 
says all that it has to say by the help of 10,000 words. 

And as we shall say no more on the Interjectional 
origin of Language, we will add what has long been a 
puzzle to us. While arguing against such an origin, 
Professor Miiller appears to us to accept what is the 
same thing in other words. If, as is probable, he also 
seems to have at least modified his originally strong 
hostility to Onomatopoeia, we may yet perhaps live to see 
a change of view as complete, though less marvellous, 
than that of Herder. I allude to the only passage in 
which I can from his writings discover the faintest 
gleam of light on the question, 'What was the origin of 
roots ? ' Now if he confessedly gave up this question as 
insoluble, there would be no more to say ; but this he 
does not do. He rejects utterly and distinctly the 
iniraculous origin of language, yet he says that 'phonetic 
types ' exist as Plato would say by nature, though with 
Plato we would add that when we say by nature, we 
mean by the hand of God.'' He rejects and nicknames 
the Interjectional theory of Language ; yet on a page 
(i. 370) which, in spite of the generally matchless 
clearness of his style, gives me none but the very 
vaguest and most uncertain conception of his funda- 
mental belief on the matter, unless it he a com^plete 
acceptation of the Interjectional theory, he says, re- 
ferring to Heyse, * There is a law which runs through 
nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is 
struck rings. ... It was the same with man, the most 



108 0^ LANGUAGE. ch. ix. 

highly organised of nature's works.' In the note he 
says that this fact ^ can of course be used as an illustra- 
tion only, and not as an explanation.' Yet he adds, 
' The faculty, peculiar to man in his primitive state, by 
which every impression from without received its vocal • 
expression from within, must be accepted as a fact.' 
And in the text he continues, 'Man . . . was endowed 
not only, like the brute, with the power of expressing 
his sensations by Interjections, and his perceptions by 
onomatopoeia. He possessed likewise the faculty of 
giving more articulate expression to the rational con- 
ceptions of his mind.' This was 'an irresistible 
instinct;' ' the creative faculty which gave to each con- 
ception, as it thrilled for the first time through the 
brain, a phonetic expression.' Now what explanations 
have we here ? Language was not revealed, yet * pho- 
netic types ' ' exist ... by the hand of God.' Language 
did not arise from Interjections or Imitations, yet it 
came from these plus an irresistible instinct whereby 
man gave ' more articulate expression to the rational 
instincts of his mind.' ^ I leave the explanation as I 
find it. The postulated additional instinct is either a 
mere development of the Interjectional faculty, or I can 
only repeat of it, ' Entia non sunt multiplicanda prgeter 
necessitatem. Frustra fit per plura quod fieri possit per 
pauciora.' 

* Long after this passage was written I met with an almost verbally 
identical criticism of this passage in Steinthal, Philologie, Geschichte, und 
Pst/chologie (Bevlm, 1864), p. 21. He ends, 'd. h. obwohl hier der 
Ursprung der Sprache erklart sein soUte, so bleibt er doch eben vollig 
unerklart.' 



109 



CHAPTER X. 



TOCAL IMITATIONS. 



'O yap ^EiriKovpos eXcyev <iri ov^t iinaTqfiSvws ovroi eOevro to ovofiaraf 
aWa (pvffiKus Kivovfievoi, ws ot fi-fjaraovres Koi irraipovTes Koi fivKcofxevoi 
Koi vXaKTOvvres Koi CTej/d^oj/Tes. — ^Pboclus, p. 9. 

Epicurus, if he be correctly reported by Proclus, in the 
often-quoted passage which stands at the head of this 
section, espouses the views of the Analogists who argued 
for the natural origin of language, against the Ano- 
malists who regarded it as the result of convention. 
Thus much, at least, is certain : — the sounds to which 
language gave distinct meaning and regular articulation 
were all of them readily supplied by nature,^ partly as 
the involuntary expressions of feeling or desire, — under 
which heads fall the Interjections and Lautgeberden, — 
partly as the instinctive imitations of an external world 
of sound. 

The instinct of imitation has a far deeper foundation 
than is usually supposed, and plays a most important 
part in the history of human progress. There is hardly 
a branch of art, there is hardly a mechanical invention 
which has not originated in the observation and copying 
of some process or phenomenon of nature. The instinct, 

' rh ovS/xara /col to pirj/xoTO ^aval, at Se (puyal (jyiffei, r^ &pa ovofjLara 
Koi Tct pyifiara (f>v(rei. Alex. Aphrodis. Schol. in Arist. de Interjpr, 
p. 103, in Lersch, i. 89. 



110 02s" LANGUAGE. ch. x. 

as Herder observes, is common to men and to the higher 
animals, and is by no means the result of intelligent 
reflection, but an immediate product of organic sym- 
pathy. As one string sounds in unison with another, — 
as a lute laid on the table echoes the tune played upon 
the lute in the performer's hand, — so the human 
organism is a musical instrument strung into such 
exquisite harmony with nature, that it vibrates in sym- 
pathy with all external influences. The imitative in- 
stinct is in fact a kind of intellectual assimilation. 
We have akeady seen how powerfully it has worked 
among all nations in the nomenclature of animals, 
which were probably the earliest objects to acquire a 
name. At present, however, we are speaking only of 
natural sounds, and simple imitations which have not 
yet reached to the position of language, but are the 
childish instinctive echoes of sensuous perceptions, or the 
playful reproductions of animal cries and other sounds. 
The main object of language is communication; but 
these imitations, in their earliest stage, convey nothing 
to the hearer, and are merely the result of an inherent 
tendency to imitate and reproduce, which is found also 
among birds aoad animals, and in which a child at a very 
early stage of his existence finds spontaneous amusement. 
It is however important to observe that the imita- 
tion is purely subjective; — in other words the imitative 
sound represents rather the impression produced than 
the sound which produced it.^ The sounds of nature. 



1 ' Man vergesse niclit, dass urspriinglieli nicLt von Nachahmung des 
Lautes der Ausseuwelt die Eede sein kann, so dass gleichsam ein 
Wetteifern mit der Natur stattgefunden hatte ; sondern dass der Mensch 
durcJi den Eindruck des aiisseren Lautes eine hestimrrtte Empfindu7ig 
erhdlte, imd dass sich diese immittelbar, ohne Eeflexion, diircli einen 



CH. X. VOCAL IMITATIONS. Ill 

for instance, are inarticulate ; but by the very nature of 
the human voice, as used for purposes of speech, the 
imitation must be more or less articulate, and must 
require consonantal sounds for its production. It is 
true that caw-caw, bow-wow, ^psfcsKSKs^, ko'l ko'I', &c., 
are not ivords ; but nevertheless they are imitative 
utterances which stand much nearer to words than the 
mere unarticulated emission, — which is quite within the 
range of the human voice, — of the sounds which are 
actually uttered by the rook, the dog, the frog, or the 
pig. A child can with a little practice imitate with 
tolerable accuracy the crowing of a cock, and this imi- 
tation merely exercises one capacity of his voice ; but if 
he says ' cock-a-doodle-doo,' the imitation is subjective, 
and merely reproduces in a conventional but very simple 
manner the imjpression caused by the cock's noise ; the 
child has not yet got to a word properly understood, but 
he is on the high road which leads directly to it. Some 
inkling of this fact must be lurking in the curious story 
of Phsedrus about the buffoon who received the plaudits 
of a crowded theatre for his very successful imitation of 
the squeaking of a pig. As he had begun by bending 
down his head into the bosom of his robe, the multitude 
believed that he had a pig concealed there, and re- 
doubled their applause when he shook out his robe and 
showed them that it was empty. An envious rustic 
exclaimed that he could excel the exhibitor, and next 
day both of them appeared on the. stage. The buffoon, 
pretending to have a pig hidden, in his robe, repeated 

Laut aussert,' &c. Wiillner, TJeher die Verwandschaft des Indogerm., &c. 
§ 3. ' The imitative nature of language consists in an artistic imitation 
not of things, but of the rational imjpression which an object produces 
by its qualities.' Bunsen, OutU7ies, ii. 103. 



112 0^ LANGUAGE. ch. x. 

his exhibition of the previous day to the delight of the 
populace; the rustic, going through the same panto- 
mime, pinched the ear of a real pig which he had 
brought in with him, and which naturally squeaked its 
sincerest and best. The people exclaimed that the 
buffoon's imitation was much the more natural of the 
two, and ordered the rustic to be kicked out ! 

At ille profert ipsum porcellum e simi, 
Turpemque aperto pignore errorem probans, 
En ! hie declarat quales sitis judices ! ' 

* Nevertheless,' says Perrault, 'the people was in the 
right ; for the comedian who imitated the pig had 
studied all its most marked and characteristic sounds, 
and, collecting them together, came closer to the notion 
which all the world has of a pig's grunts.' ^ The story 
is too curious not to be true, and the explanation too 
ingenious not to be correct ! 

The same fact as to the nature of linguistic imitations 
explains the vast diversity in the articulated attempts 
of various nations to reproduce one and the same sound. 
This subject has been already illustrated fuUy,^ and 
little more need be added upon it. Who would assert 
that kiao kiao in Chinese, and dehor dehor in Mandshu, 
cock-a-doodle-doo in English, and Groekerdihoe in Fran- 
conian, are not onomatopoeias for the crowing of a cock, 

1 PhEedrus, Fab. v. 5. 

' Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes, iii. 216. Charma, p. 253. 

3 See Lobeck, Aglaophamus, i. 779. Origin of Lang. pp. 81-85. The 
fact, however, that the actual sounds imitated are often really different 
in different countries has often been overlooked. Ding-dong represents 
the tone of a large church-bell, but bilbil or tintinnabulum of a little 
hand-bell. So pHV represents the laughter of an Oriental, cachinnus 
of an Italian, &c. Compare, however, jpj^ with yeKduj, lachen, Gothic 
hlahjan. 



I 



> 



CH. X. VOCAL IMITATIONS. 113 

because on paper they look so different ? or that ' bang ' 
is not an onomatopoeia for the sound of a gun, because 
it is wholly unlike the ' Pouf ' of the French ? or that 
Screech-owl is not as onomatopoetic as ulula ? or that 
taratantara is not as much an imitation of the trum- 
pet as the Hebrew Chatzotzrah (nnv'ivn. ), or the Grerman 
Kling-klang as the Hebrew (^^?V) Tziltzal, though 
they have not a letter in common? The Grreeks used 
both Koy^ and ^Xco^lr (compare our 'flop ') to imitate 
the sound of the Clepsydra, for which sound Nsevius 
invents the word ' bilbit amphora.' Yet a Latin poet 
says ' glut glut ^ murmurat unda sonans/ and from this 
derives the word ' glutton ; ' and Varro ^ makes ^ puis ' 
(our pulse) to be an onomatopoeia of similar meaning ! 
A comparison of the sounds of animals, as represented 
in different languages, will illustrate the fact most 
clearly. Coleridge speaks of the nightingale's ' murmurs 
musical and sweet jug-jug,^ while Tennyson writes in 
the person of a peasant-woman, 

Whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale, 

and the Turkish poet, still trying to reproduce the same 
sound, calls the bird a bulbul. How then is this remark- 
able diversity to be explained ? ^ The reason of it is, that 

^ * Percutit et frangit vas ; vinum defluit, ansa 

Stricta fuit, glut glut nmrmnrat unda sonans, 
Credit glutonem se rusticus inde vocari.' 

Anthol. Lat. ii. 405. Burm. 

2 Varro, L. L, iv. 22. For K07I, /3\cii|/, ku|, &e., see Eustathius, 
p. 768, 12. 

3 In the fanciful and often absurd Ornithophonia of Boerius one may 
see how manifold are the ways of representing our impression of a bird's 
note. Parts of it are quoted in Nodier's Bid. dcs Onomatop. p. 283 ; and 
he also gives at length Bechstein's amazing analysis of the song of the 
nightmgale. 

I 



114 ON LANGUAGE. ch. x. 

man does not attempt to make the identical sound which 
he hears, but artistically ^ to reproduce it or the impres- 
sion it has made, just as a painter often purposely deviates 
from the actual colours of nature because they would 
not produce the same effect on the mind under the 
limited conditions of his art. In fact the miind no less 
than the sense contributes its share to the imitative 
result. It is not a dull passive echo, but an ideal re- 
flection. The mind, like the magic glass of Cydippe, 
modifies every image which it reflects. It is, as has 
been proved repeatedly, an absurdity to say that there 
is any resemblance between the impression and the 
phenomenon or object which produces it. The former 
is of course a coefficient of the latter, but as the rela- 
tions between them are utterly unknown, any comparison 
of the two involves an inherent absurdity. 

Imagination then plays no small part even in the 
production of these imitative sounds, and it is probable 
that among primeval races imagination, as exercised in 
the appellative faculty, was far more delicate and active 
than it now is ; indeed, we may at once infer that such 
was the case by noticing its workings among savage 
tribes. Language, be it remembered, was not fashioned 
at the writing-desk or in the close study of the philo- 
sopher. ' If we would follow its track,' it has been said, 
* we must place ourselves under the broad free heaven, 
in the fresh life-exuberant Youth of Mankind, in the 
age of overweening strength, fermenting vigour, over- 
flowing plenty. ... The whole deeply-felt necessity 
which urged the primitive men from one step of lan- 
guage to another must come out before us in most 

* See Benloew, Eecherches sur V Origine des Noms deNombre, p. 91. 



CH. X. VOCAL IMITATIONS. 115 

living reality, and penetrate our whole being with its 
inward and primitive force. So possibly may we suc- 
ceed in finding once more the long-obscured traces of 
past millenniums.' ^ 

The manifold forms which words may assume, which 
are yet all directly inspired by the imitative principle, 
are perhaps best shown in the names for thunder, — 
although the word thunder itself, and its cognates, 
tonitru, donner, tonnerre,. &c., are believed to have had 
a different origin,^ and merely to have been subsequently 
moulded into onomatopoetic semblance by an uncon- 
scious feeling of congruity. Two treatises have been 
written on the subject, — one by Grrimm {Ueher Namen 
des Donners, Berlin, 1855), and another by Pott {JJeher 
Mdnnichfaltigheit des sprachlichen Ausdrucks),^ From 
the latter of these (which the author did me the honour 
to send me with a most kind letter) I select a few 
only of the names for thunder. Such are Sanskrit 
gargi, distant thunder ; vagragvala, a clap of thunder ; 
Graelic tairneanach ; Bohemian hrmeng, hromohitj ; 
Albanian /SovfjL^ovXlr ; Wallachian tresuetu; Icelandic 
thruma. Who does not see the imitative instinct here 
at work? Yet the results are as different as are the 
individual impressions, which even differ in the same 
person with the mood in which they find him at any 
particular time. Nay, more, our impressions are often 

^ Drechsler, Grundlegung sur wissenschaftUchen Konstricciion des 
gcsammten Wortev' und Formschatzes zundchts der semitischen, ver- 
suchsweise und in Grundzugen auch der indogerm. Sprachen, p, xxi. 
Can no one influence the G-erman writers to remember that life is too 
short for such intolerably long-winded titles to their books ? 

2 I have examined, further on, the connection of reiveiu and tonitru. 
Pott, ubi infra, p. 208. Heyse, p, 93. 

Printed in the Journal of Steinthal and Lazarus. 
I 2 



116 ON LANGUAGE. ch. x. 

purely conventional in their origin. Ancient writers 
for instance, and nearly all writers down to the time of 
Milton^ make the song of the nightingale * most melan- 
*choly,' and fancied they caught in it the echo of a 
bereaved mother's wail. But in modern days we have 
iong been agreed that it is 

the merry nightingale 
That crowds and hurries and precipitates 
With fast thick warble its delicious notes. 

"What the eye sees and the ear hears depends in no 
iSmall measure on the brain and the heart. The hiero- 
glyphics of nature, like the inscriptions on the swords 
^f Vathek, vary with every eye that glances on them ; 
her voices, like the voice ^ of Helen to the ambushed 
Greeks^ take not one tone of their own, but the tone' 
that each hearer loves best to hear. 

So far then we have examined (1) the development 
of 'representations/ as the objects of distinct thought; 
and (2) the natural sounds out of which can alone be 
framed the language which expresses thought. It still 
remains to catch a glimpse, so far as is possible, of the 
further process of development which weds the sounds 
of language to its sense. Bat even so far as we have 
yet proceeded we may see that Speech was not produced 
either by purely arbitrary or by distinctly conscious 
processes. The human organism evolved it as an in- 
tegral part of its own life, by an unconscious necessity 
which resulted from its inmost constitution.^ There 
was no need to search for the sounds which should 



^ Vid. Od. iv. 278. e/c S' ovoix.o.KX-r]Zr\v Aavo.u>v ovofxa^es apiffrovs 
2 Drechsler, ubi supra, p. 10. 



CH. X. VOCAL IMITATIONS. 117 

correspond with and paint the sensations they expressed ; 
Instinct supplied them, in the form of Interjections and 
Imitations, far more powerfully and swiftly than could 
have been done by the wavering process of conscious 
selection. * As the artist fashions the symbol in which 
his Idea is reborn, not by conscious consideration, buty 
like nature, by unconscious science ; — as the heart stirred 
by joy or sorrow, still, w^ithout search or hesitation, im- 
mediately, unconsciously, but surely and appropriately^ 
utters the sound which truly paints the colour of the 
passion, — so it is in all language.' To develop Language 
was the appointed task for the youth of humanity^ 
and its work, as is ever the case vdth the w^ork of the 
inspired artist, is inconceivable to the uninitiated, and 
wonderful to all. 

It is a curious and interesting fact that even among 
uncivilised nations we find what appears to be a trace^ 
mythologically expressed, of this same conception, viz, 
that it w^as the mighty diapason of nature which fur- 
nished man with the tones which he modulated into 
articulate speech. The Esthonian ^ legend of the kettle 
of boiling water which ' the Aged one ' placed on the fire^ 
and from the hissing and boiling of which the various 
nations learned their languages and dialects, mythically 
represents the Kesselberg, with its crests enveloped in 
the clouds of summer steam, which they regarded as the 
throne of the thunder-god ; and the Languages which it 
distributes are the rolling echoes of Thunder and Light- 
ning, Storm and Rain. They have another and still more 
beautiful legend of a similar character to explain the 

* Grimm, Urspr. d. Sprache, p. 28. The explanations are given by 
Steinthal, Gesch. d. Sprachwissenschaft hei den Griechen und Eomern. 
p. 10. 



118 ON LANGUAGE. ch. x. 

origin of Song or Festal-speecli. The god of song 
"Wannemunne descended on the Domberg, on which 
stands a sacred wood, and there played and sang. All 
creatures were invited to listen, and they each learnt 
some fragment of the celestial sound ; the listening 
wood learnt its rustling, the stream its roar ; the wind 
caught and learnt to reecho the shrillest tones, and the 
birds the prelude of the song. The fish stuck up their 
heads as far as the eyes out of the water, but left their 
ears under water ; they saw the movements of the god's 
mouth, and imitated them, but remained dumb. Man 
only grasped it all, and therefore his song pierces into 
the depths of the heart, and upwards to the dwellings of 
the gods. 

The legends of savages, and their mythical attempts 
to express a dim philosophy of speech, are so extremely 
few that it is interesting to observe in them this ten- 
dency. The following legend of the Australian abori- 
gines appears at first sight to be meaningless. They 
say that there was an old woman named Wururi, who 
went out at night and used to quench the fires with a 
great stick. When this old woman died the people 
tore her corpse to pieces. The Southern tribes coming 
up first ate her flesh, and immediately gained a very 
clear language. The Eastern and the Northern tribes, 
who came later, spoke less intelligible dialects. If 
Steinthal ^ be right in seeing in Wururi a personification 
of the damp Night-wind, then at the root of this legend 
also, lies the notion that the Imitation of Nature helped 
largely to furnish the material of speech. 

* Gesch, der Sprachwissenschaft. p. 9. 



119 



CHAPTER XL 

FROM IMITATIVE SOUNDS TO INTELLIGENT SPEECH. 

MeyoAr; rovrwv apxh koI SidaffKuXos t} (f>v(ns, 7] Troiovcra fii/xririKovs Tjixas 
/col OsTiKovs Twv bvofiaTcav, oh SrjXovraL to. irpdyfj-ara. 

Dion. Hal. De Comp. Verb. p. 94. 

The Intelligence plays but a very subordinate part, and 
finds no adequate expression,^ in the Natural Sounds 
which tell of sensation and sensuous impression. 

Eeasonable speech begins when the mind has arrived 
at those immediate individual perceptions which we have 
called Intuitions,^ and which correspond to the Grerman 
Anschauungen, These intuitions are expressed, in the 
parallel development of sound, by Roots. 

The Representation is a development of the Intuition, 
by means of Abstraction ; and in the same way the Word 
is a development of the Root by a formal limitation of 
the merely material meaning of the root into a deter- 
minate object of thought, which also externally assumes 
a determinate and limited Sound. 

* Throughout this brief section I generally follow Heyse, p. 88 sqq,, — 
except where other^vise indicated ; I do not however translate him, fre- 
quently preferring other forms of expression or arrangement of sentences, 
and frequently interweaving my own comments or illustrations. 

"^ ' Every act of consciousness of which the immediate object is an 
individual thing, state, or act of mind, presented under the condition of 
distinct existence in space or time.' Mansel, Proleg. Log. p. 9, in 
Fleming, p. 272. 



120 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xi. 

Just as the intuition (Ansehauung) melts into tlie 
representation ( Vorstellung) without acquiring any per- 
manent fixity, so in actual speech the Eoot vanishes 
into the Word. It has no independent existence ; but 
can only be separated into its elements by an analysis 
of Language in its finished state. 

The production of the word is necessarily coincident 
with the production of the 'representation.' For in 
consequence of man's double nature, partly corporeal 
partly spiritual, he cannot firmly grasp a ' representa- 
tion ' otherwise than by means of the word which is its 
sensuous sign. The creative Spontaneity of the Intellect 
in the production of the ' representation ' must express 
itself in a corresponding spontaneous effort of the phy- 
sical organism. The representation must receive an 
objective form. In order to grasp and retain the repre- 
sentation in his own intellectual possession, man must 
necessarily likewise clothe it in a palpable form, for 
himself, and — since his life is essentially social — for 
others also. In order to master an object and appro- 
priate it to himself for his own mental purposes, he 
must give it an Ideal existence instead of its real one, 
and even this Ideal existence must have its sensuous 
form in order that it may be exhibited and expressed. 
He cannot be thoroughly conscious of the representation, 
as of something which he definitely possesses, without 
giving it some form of expression,^ and the most perfect 
and natural form, as has been shown already, is furnished 
by Sound. 

We have arrived then at that point in the Else of 

^ Similar reasoning may be fonnd in Humboldt, Ueher d. Verschied. d. 
mmschl. Sprachbaues, p. 68. See p. 51 of the Analysis of this work by 
M. Tonnelle. 



CH. XI. FROM SOUNDS TO WORDS. 121 

Language at which man must develope those Natural 
Sounds which he possesses as a part of the animal crea- 
tion, into meaning and appropriate words, so specialised 
as to become the signs of distinct conceptions. What we 
have yet to try and understand is the reason why parti- 
cular sounds should have been attached to particular 
conceptions ; or in other words we must try and dis- 
cover whether there are any principles on which we can 
establish a natural, organic connection between words, 
regarded as sounds, and the meanings which we attach 
to them. 

Now unless we take refuge in miracle or mysticism, — 
unless we shield ourselves behind a plea of lazy igno- 
rance, which simply means a refusal to enquire, or hide 
that very ignorance under the exploded jargon of a 
pseudo-metaphysical science by talking of occult causes, 
— we must admit that there must have been an original 
connection between sound and sense, * The word,' as 
Steinthal observes, * belongs not only to the speaker 
but to the hearer,' and * comprehension ^ and speech are 
only different effects of the same power of Language.' 
Now a root, or a word, could be practically neither root 
nor word if it were unintelligible to the hearer ; it would 
be as meaningless as the babble of an idiot. How then 
could such a sound be intelligible? It is too late in 
the day to talk of the possibility of Convention being 
the origin of the meaning attached to sounds. Against 
such a theory alone applies with full force the celebrated 
dictum of Humboldt that ' man is man only by means 
of language, but that without language he never could 
have invented language.' Now as the connection be- 

' Steintlial, Tlrspr. d. Spracke, p. 11. Humboldt, Ueber d. Verschied. 
p. 70. Heyse, p. 13. Becker, Organ d. 8;prache, § 3. 



122 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xi. 

tween sound and sense was not arbitrary, and was not 
miraculous, it must have had a definite reason. Any 
sound therefore which would at once express and con- 
vey even the simplest sensation, must necessarily be a 
spontaneous natural sound ; i. e. it must be either imita- 
tive or interjectional. The living, feeling, observing 
Child of Nature, without deliberation, influenced only 
by sensation or the imitative instinct, produces a sound 
to represent his conceptions ; and this sound, so origi- 
nated, is instantly intelligible, by virtue of its natural 
force, to a fellow-man, similarly organised, standing on 
the same step of mental development, and surrounded 
by precisely the same conditions, circumstances, and 
climatic influences. The nearer men stand to the 
natural life, the more they resemble one another.^ In- 
dividuality is evolved by dawning civilisation. The 
whole life of the savage in all its external indications, 
is the life rather of a species than of an individual, 
and consequently it is dominated over by certain natural 
necessities rather than by the freedom of the Intellect. 
Hence among uncultivated races, far more than among 
civilised races, the sound uttered by each individual 
would with extraordinary rapidity be accepted and under- 
stood as a sign by the entire nation. Thus there would 
be in the Origin of Language nothing either capricious 
or mystical, but the harmonious and perfect working 
of laws and instincts inseparable from the very nature 
of mankind ; and it may confidently be asserted that if 
the explanation thus offered as to the original union 
between sound and sense be not correct, it is at any rate 

^ It has been said that the members of savage tribes are, even in 
countenance, so exactly like each other that no passport system would be 
possible among them. 



CH. XI. FROM SOUNDS TO WORDS. 123" 

an explanation that naturally suggests itself, — it is one 
which has been accepted by many profound and eminent 
philologists, — it is one which may be supported by many 
powerful and valuable arguments, and no other worth 
considering has ever been offered in its place. 

We say ' no other;' for the theory of ' phonetic types ' 
stops short of this question altogether. There must 
have been a reason why a ' phonetic type ' was a type, — 
and this is the reason which, as being deeply interesting 
as well as most important, we try to discover. For if 
the ' phonetic type ' was ' an accidental label stuck on to 
a thing ' there is an end to the Science of Language, and 
words are but the accidents of accidents. Is not such 
a view of words an instance of the very fault which 
the author of it reprobates, — the fault of preferring the 
unintelligible which can be admired to the intelligible 
which can only be understood ? 

We must now consider yet more closely the growth 
of natural sounds, and especially Imitations, into Lan- 
guage, — which together with a defence and explanation 
of the results arrived at will occupy the two next 
sections. 



124 OJf LANGUAGE. 



CHAPTEE XII. 



ONOMATOPOEIA. 




^Ovofiaroirod'a Se iari (pwvrjs fii/xriffis trphs t^v TToiorrira rod inroK^iixivov 
^Xou. —-^TJID. s. V. ciC<^. 

If we consider on the one hand the different kinds of 
natural sound, and on the other the stock of words 
which belong to intelligent speech, we shall find many- 
close points of contact and transition between the two. ^ 
We find, in fact, in Imitations and Interjections two 
concurrent points of origin for the two main classes of 
words. All the words of language may be classed under 
two great divisions, which may be called Matter-words 
and Form-words. To the former class belong Nouns ^ 
and Verbs, which supply the main materials of Thought 
and Speech, and signify perceptible objects or distinct 
actions ; to the latter belong pronouns, particles, (fee, 
which express our perceptions as modified by nume- 
rous relations of Space and Time. Now as a general, 
though far from invariable rule, all matter-words of 
whose origin we can give any account at all spring from 
imitative sounds; and form- words from interjections, 
especially from what have been called Vocal Gestures. 

1 Heyse, p. 90. 

2 A somewhat similar division is found in Aristotle's (puvaX a-nixavriKal 
{ovofxa, prjfjLo) and (puval &(rrifioi [crvpSefxos, &pdpov). 



CH. xir. OXOMATOPCEIA. 125 

In the primitive language indeed, parts ^ of speech had 
no recognised existence ; the very genius of language 
was holophrastic, aud a sound stood for a sentence,^ the 
same sound having many meanings according to its 
position or pronunci^ion, Nevertheless there must 
have been from the first a traceable distinction between 
nominal and pronominal roots. ^A rigorous analysis 
of the Indo-European tongues,' says Mr. G-arnett, 
^ shows, if we mistake not, that they are reducible to two 
very simple elements : 1. Abstract nouns,^ denoting the 
simple properties or attributes of things. 2. Pronouns, 
originally denoting the relations of Space.' We shall 
hope to show reasons for believing that nouns had, for 
the most part, their direct origin in imitative sounds ; 
and considering that in the origin of language^he dis- 
tinction between parts of speech is only of the slightest 
and most rudimentary character,'^ — if we can trace the 
genesis of nouns, we have solved the problem before us. 

* ' Die Sprache ist nicht stiickweis od^r atomistisch, sie ist gleich in 
alien ihren Tkeilen als Ganzes und demnach organisch entstanden.' 
Schelling, Einl. in die Pkilos. d. Mythologie, p. 51. On the primitiye 
speech-cells, which have as yet no special organs for the functions of 
distinct parts of speech, see Schleicher, Die Barwinische Theorie und die 
Sprachwissensckaft, p. 23. This is an ingenious pamphlet showing the 
light which the Darwinian hypothesis throws upon language. 

2 'Les inventeurs des langues n'etaient pas des grammairiens comma 
Condillac, Adam Smith et tant d'autres, qu'on croirait avoir dine avec 
nos premiers parents, tant ils sont bien instruits de la maniere exacte et 
precise dont le premier langage a ete forme.' Dn Ponceau, Mem. sur le 
Syst. Gram, des Langues de V Amerique du Nurd, p. 15. 

3 It is impossible to speak of the priority of nouns or verbs ; both 
originate together, as specialisations of the original vague elements of 

I speech. See Schleicher, Compend. d. vergl. Gram. p. 412. 
* Every lingua franca presents a picture of what the primitive lan- 
guages must have been, by reducing lang-uage to its simplest elements 
and by the almost complete elimination of grammar. See Appleyard, 
Kaf. Gram. p. 10. Lathanj, Var. of Man, p. 320 sqq. Here for in- 
1 



\ 



126 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xii. 

An imitative sound, gives expression to an auditory- 
perception, and therefore has a necessary and obvious 
relation to the object which causes the perception. The 
sounds perceived and reproduced, gives to the Intellect 
a fixed mark of the object perc^ved. How then could 
man more naturally name the representation of an 
object which he has grasped in his intelligence, than by 
the copy of its characteristic mark ? Now when the 
Imitative natural sound is firmly held as a sign of, and 
then as a name for the representation, it becomes a 
Word ; and this method of forming words is named 
Onomatopoeia. 

First of all man names the perceived sound itself by 
the natural imitation of it, e.g. a croak, a shriek, /So»y, 
&c. ; next the producing of the sound, as croaking, 
shrieking, /Soav, &e. ; and finally the object from which 
the sound emanates, and which the repetition of it 
recalls before the mind, as crow, ^ov9, cuckoo, &c, 

Now those who attack the Onomatopoetic theory in- 
variably leap to the conclusion that we mean by it to 
describe Language as due solely to the Instinct of Imita- 
tion, and that as other animals have this instinct and 
yet do not possess language the theory breaks down. 
Possibly indeed such a notion may arise from want of 
sufiicient precision in our statements of the theory ; but 
as we have repeatedly protested against it before, so we 

stance is a negro crier's version of the notice that ' Pigs without rings 
in their noses are to be shot.' ' I say — suppose a pig walk — iron no live 
for him nose ! — gun shoot ! kill im one time.' Hutchinson, Ten Years' 
Wanderings, p. 32. And here is a specimen of the Chinese ' pigeon ' 
(i. 8. 'business') English. 'My chin-chin you, this one velly good flin 
(=friend) belong mi; mi wantchie you do plopel pigeon (=proper 
business), along he, all same fashion along mi,' &c. Prehistoric Man^ 
ii. 428. 



CH. XII. ONOMATOP(EIA. 127 

here again caution the student that this is not our view, 
and that to argue as if it were is not to refute but to 
misrepresent. A nfiere capacity for sensuous imitation 
would end, as it does with the jay and the mocking- 
bird, in a mere collection of natural sounds. But here 
the intellect steps in, and makes the imitation a means 
for the satisfaction of its higher needs. In itself the 
mere imitation is a natural sound expressive of a sen- 
suous impression, and nothing more; but the mind 
seizes upon it as a means for its own culture, reproduces 
it at will as the sign of a fixed representation, as the 
name of that representation, and so as a Word. And 
when the Sound has become a Word, it has a far richer 
and at the same time more abstract meaning, inasmuch 
as it no longer signifies or even calls attention to the 
imitated Sound, but stands for the whole conception. 
Nobody for instance in using the word cow ^ dreams of 
its 'primeval significance as the creature that lows (in 
North Country dialect ' coo '), but as a most useful 
domestic animal, possessing numberless familiar attri- 
butes. 

Now, as far as the mere outward form is concerned, 
there may be only a single step from the natural Sound 
to the Word ; nay more the two may be phonetically 

^ Is it conceivable that any one can, with this explanation before him, 
prefer to derive it from the Sanskrit root gu, to go ? Would any human 
being have fixed on going as a special attribute, a characteristic mark, 
of the cow ! — so characteristic as to be selected out of a host of attributes 
to suggest the animal's name! See Pictet, Les Orig. Ind. i. 331, who 
very sensibly admits the onomatopoetic origin. See too T. Hewitt 
Key's able pamphlet^ Quceritur, p. 8. I take this opportunity of apolo- 
gising to Professor Key for my inadvertence in attributing to him the 
derivation of ' vivo ' from ' bibo,' which he never in any way sanctioned 
{Orig. of Lang. p. 105). I have already explained to him by letter 
the origin of my mistake. 



128 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xii. 

coincident; but between the inner meaning of the two 
lies the entire chasm which separates the natural life 
of sense from the free intellectual life, — the entire chasm 
which separates the sensation from the concept. 

It is true that in finished language the pure and 
obvious onomatopoeias are mainly those which express 
the actual sounds imitated, or verbal forms derived 
from them ; to roar,^ buzz, whizz, crack, clang, screech, 
hiss, rustle, &c.; and more rarely substantives, such 
as crow, cuckoo, peewit, &c., because when the Intellect 
pierces deeper into the nature of things, it often rejects 
the crude imitation which is no longer a necessity, and 
proceeds to the naming of objects by deeper-lying and 
more significant characteristics, — which are often ex- 
pressed by words in which all traces of original imitation 
have disappeared for centuries. 

So far IIe3^se ; with much that he proceeds to add, we 
disagree, and we shall incidentally give reasons for doing 
so in the following part of the chapter. On one point 
however we are entirely of his view, in regarding the 
onomatopoetic principle as a starting-point of Lan- 
guage; we do not however think with him that the 
advancing intellect of mankind soon dispensed with it, 
and still less that it had but a trifling influence in 



* It wotild be easy to produce a very long and striking list of such 
verbs in Hebrew. Greek is also rich in them, as oXoXv^eiv, aXaXdCeiv, 
firjKo.ffOci'L, fivKaffdai, ^pvxacrdai, poi^eip, xP^i'^^T'C'^"'} (Tvpi(€ip, crl^eiv, KXay- 
yaiveiv, k.t.X. Latin ululare, balare, mugire, rugire, stridere, hinnire, 
sibilare, &c. See Egger, Notions Mementaires de Gram. Corwp, p. 155. 
The little poem Philomela, by Albiug Ovidius Juventinus, is a string of 
such onomatopoeias, mostly of his own invention. It deserves a passing 
glance, though its value is purely philological. Many of these imitations 
with others may be seen in the fragment of an old glossary, ' Ex regula 
Phocse.' Mai, Auct. Class, vi. 600. 



CH. XII. o:n'omatop(eia. - 129 

liberating the intellect from mere sensuous impressions. 
The fact that it is still seen so conspicuously at work in 
the language of children and savages seems to us to 
refute such conclusions. I venture to disagree from 
Heyse only in the small degree of importance which he 
attaches to the principle. Grranting that he is correct in 
considering the Sound to be a mere means, or element, 
or ' moment ' in the development of the Word, just as 
the perception is in the development of the concept, — 
granting that the Word never, or very rarely, continues 
to be a mere Echo or Keflex of the sensuous impression 
— still without this means, without these mere echoes, 
it seems to us certain that language could never have 
existed. They were the appointed instrument to de- 
velope the latent germ, or Idea, of Speech, and we 
believe that they suggested the vast majority of actual 
roots. 

Perhaps a consideration of the objections to the 
theory will enable us to understand it more clearly. 
They will at any rate leave the reader more in a posi- 
tion to judge for himself, and will show our desire to 
avoid mere ex 'parte statements and reasonings. I 
have searched for these objections and refutations far 
and wide, and not consciously shirked any one of them; 
and in order to give them the best possible position, I 
shall quote them, as often as I can, from the pages of 
Professor Max Miiller. It will, I think, be seen that 
the only ones which are at all insuperable are aimed 
not at the theory rightly understood, but at mere mis- 
apprehension of it. 



130 0^ LANGUAGE. 




CHAPTEE XIIL 

OBJECTIONS TO THE IMITATIVE THEOKT ASSERTED 

PAUCITY OF ONOMATOPffilAS, EVEN IN ANIMAL NAMES, 



* Gallorum cantus, et ovantes gutture corvos, 
Et vocum quidquid bellua et ales habet, 
Omnia cum simules ita yere ut ficta negentur, 
Nob potes humanse vocis habere sonum.' 

Auson. Epig. Ixxvi. 

1. The first objection to the theory that the imitation 
of natural sounds was the chief starting-point of lan- 
guage, and the source of most nominal roots, is that 
' the certain onomatopoeias in our language are few in 
number,^ 

' Though there are names in every language formed 
by mere imitation of sound, yet these constitute ^ a very 
small proportion of our dictionary. They are the 
playthings, not the tools of language, and any attempt 
to reduce the most common and necessary words to 
imitative roots ends in complete failure.' 

So wrote Professor Miiller in his first series of Lec- 
tures (i. p. 347); but it is fair to hope that his view 
has been a little modified, because in his second series 

1 A similar objection is urged byEgger: 'Si Ton compare a I'immense 
richesse des langues grecque, latine et fran9aise, le petit nombre des 
mots dont il pent rendre compte, on se conraincra que 1' etymologic ne 
doit pas accorder a I'onomatopee une trop grande importance.' Notions 
^lementaires, p. 155. 



CH. XIII. OBJECTIONS TO THE IMITATIVE THEORY. 131 

he writes (ii. 92), * There is one class of scholars who 
derive all words from roots according to the strictest 
rules of comparative grammar, but who look upon the 
roots in their original character as either interjectional 
or onomatopoeic' With regard to this theory, which is 
the only one which I am maintaining, he says, 'I should 
wish to remain entirely neutral^ satisfied with con- 
sidering roots as phonetic types till some progress has 
been made in tracing the principal roots not of Sanskrit 
only, but of Chinese, Bask, the Turanian, and Semitic 
languages, back to the cries of man or the imitated 
sounds of nature.' 

Our reply to the objection is this : That if the pro- 
posed etymologies be correct, ^the words formed by 
mere imitation of sound ' do not constitute by any 
means ^a very small proportion of our dictionary.' 
Perhaps the meaning is however that the obvious, 
certain, and indisputable onomatopoeias are few in 
number. Indeed we conceive that this must be the 
meaning because elsewhere it is admitted ' that each 
language possesses a large stock of words imitating the 
sounds given out by certain things.' ^ The word ^ few ' 
then is a very relative word, and if any one will examine 
for himself with patience a fair portion of a Grreek, 
Hebrew, or English Lexicon, he will find that even the 
certain onomatopoeias, with their derivatives, furnish 
him with a very long list ; and that the number of words 
which have so much of the onomatopoetic element in 
them as most plausibly to be referred to a similar origin 
(especially as any other account which can be given of 
them is at least equally questionable), is very large in- 

^ Lectures, ii. 89. 
K 2 



132 ON LAIs'GUAGE. ch. xiii. 

deed. In French and in English the student will find 
the task ready performed to his hands by Charles Nodier 
in his Didionncdre des Onomatopees, and by Mr. Hens- 
leigh Wedgwood in his Dictionary of English Etymo- 
logy. The former is full of errors which were perhaps 
inevitable at the time when it was written ; and every 
student will find a good deal from which he must withhold 
his consent until further proofs are adduced. But even 
with this deduction a candid consideration of M. Nodier's 
and Mr. Wedgwood's labours can hardly fail to convince 
him that the objection as to the paucity of actual 
onomatopoeias is one which is wholly without weight. 
Only, in looking for onomatopoeias he must remember 
that there is an immense gap between articulate and 
inorganic sounds,^ and that he is looking, not for imita- 
tions, like bow-wow, but for human words adopted into 
rational speech, and therefore framed by the Intelligence 
of man from mere raw echoes to artistic articulated 
sounds in accordance with the processes which we have 
already endeavoured to trace. He must remember too 
that in the course of ages, Words (to borrow the frequent 
similitude) are tossed and rolled and chipped ^ out of 

* And, for tliis reason, ' in tlie imitative synonyms of the same or 
cognate tongues, we must expect only to meet with resemblances of a 
very general nature' Mr. Wedgwood, in Niil. Trans, ii, 118. It is 
most necessary to enforce this observation. Onomatopoeia is not so 
much the imitation of soimds, as the instinctive and quasi-imitative 
reproduction of the im2:)ressions made by sounds. Wiillner, Urspr. d. 
Sprache, s. 28. We must not therefore expect to find them either uniform 
or exact. They may range over wide phonetic differences, and yet be 
onomatopoetic in origin. 

- Similarly, in ideographical characters which were once pictorial, ' that 
the resemblance should be in many cases so exact as in itself to demon- 
strate the object, is scarcely to be expected.' Marshman, Chinese Gram. 
p. 17. And Ewald {Hebr. Gra/n. § 135) says of the Hebrew alphabet. 



CH. XIII. OBJECTIOIS^S TO THE IMITATIVE THEORY. 133 

shape like the pebbles which are perpetually tumbled 
by the sea-waves upon a shingly beach, and that there- 
fore a word, once distinctly imitative, has often lost 
every possible external trace of its sensuous origin. It 
is now an established fact that every abstract word has 
acquired its meaning by derivation and metaphor from 
other words expressive of mere sensation,^ yet how long 
and difficult, in some cases how uncertain or even im- 
possible, it is to point out the intervening stages ; and 
to the flippant and the ignorant how ridiculous is the 
apparent inadequacy of the origin to produce the result ! 
Yet the fact has now been demonstrated, and we only 
ask the same patience and unprejudiced learning in the 
endeavour to trace the physical origin of all our words 
from natural sounds. And as we are confirmed in our 
conviction of the sensational origin of all our abstract 
words by observing that the more primeval and uncul- 
tivated a language is, the more numerous are its sense- 
words, and the fewer its abstractions, so we are confirmed 
in our conviction about onomatopoeia by observing its 
extreme prevalence and vividness in the tongues which 
have least been subjected to the influences of civilisa- 
tion. ' That portion of the vast growth of language,' 
says an ingenious writer,^ ' which can be traced to a 
directly mimetic root may remain a small fraction of 
the whole; but if it he the only 'portion whose structure 
is intelligible to us, we shall readily believe that the 

' The signs have been for the most part very much altered, because in 
writing they retained the dead traces only from habit, without thinking 
of their meaning according to the intention of the first discoverers.' 
This is, verbatim, true of language also. 

• ' So hat auch keine Sprache ein Abstractum, zu dem sie nicht durch 
Ton und Gefiihl gelangt ware.' Herder, Ahhandl. s. 122. 

^ In MacmillarCa Magazine. 



134 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xiii. 

AYorking of this principle is limited by our ignorance 
and not by its own nature. The progress of all science 
consists in the destruction of these phantasmal limita- 
tions which, like the circle of the visible horizon, we 
project upon the outward world. . . . The study of lan- 
guage, we doubt not, is destined to achieve an analogous 
triumph over the weakness of our imagination, teaching 
us, in the imperfect accents of the child or the savage, 
to recognise the working of that principle which has 
perfected for us the instrument of thought.' 

Let us take a parallel case. It is now admitted by 
all competent scholars that all alphabetic writing de- 
rived its origin from pictorial and ideographic signs 
which originated from systems invented in Egypt, in 
Mesopotamia, and elsewhere. The analysis of the whole 
body of speech into its elementary sounds, and the 
representation of these sounds to the eye by figures on 
a plane surface, is so marvellous a discovery, — hardly less 
marvellous than the discovery of speech itself, — that, 
like speech and no less erroneously, it has been attri- 
buted to direct inspiration, and ascribed by Jews and 
Christians to Moses, Abraham, Seth, or Noah,* as by 
the ancient Egyptians to the god Thoth. Yet it is now 
established that writing was a gradual human discovery, 
and that the secret of it, like that of speech, was sug- 
gested by the instinct of imitation. Now this has been 
proved by precisely similar steps of induction to those ^ 



* Voss, De Arte Gramraatica, pp. 39-43. He truly says that on this 
topic ' mtilti multa tradidervmt et fuse, et confuse.' 

2 In fact the processes are strictly analogous. The alphabet originally 
presented pictures, i. e. copies or imitations, to the eye, and when the 
secret of such representation was once learnt, the pictures rapidly became 
conTentional and unrecognisable : so language presented copies or imita- 



CH. xiTi. OBJECTIOIS-S TO THE IMITATIVE THEORY. 135 

which we have followed in referring all roots to an 
onomatopoetic origin ; and if the steps of the argument 
have been in the one case universally accepted as con- 
clusive and satisfactory, why should they not be simi- 
larly accepted in the other ? Just as we have proved 
that imitative words are most common in savage lan- 
guages ; that they are more numerous and distinct in 
primitive than in modern languages ; that many of 
them are confessedly and clearly traceable ; that they 
supply us with a vera causa or adequate explanation ; 
that the steps of the progress are thus simple and 
natural ; and that no other theory has been seriously 
attempted ; — so we show that picture-writing has pre- 
vailed and does prevail among various uncultivated 
races ; that it is the most obvious principle which could 
have been adopted; that it explained itself; that in all 
traceable instances the picture was the origin of the 
letter ; and that for instance in Egyptian ^ writing 
the Demotic or enchorial system is a corruption of the 
Hieratic, which is a degeneration of the Hieroglyphic, 
which is but a modification of the pictorial. With these 
clues we take any alphabet ; and as the Aramaean is the 
most important, and may most probably, as tradition 
asserts, have been the origin of the Phcenician, and 
through that of the Grreek, and through that of the 
Eoman alphabet and of our own, — and as the Hebrew 
alphabet is one of our oldest approximations to the 
Aramsean,^ let us take that alphabet, and see how it was 

tions to the ear, which imitations were rapidly modified out of mere 
echoes into definite words by the action of weU-defined physical and 
psychical laws. 

* See for details the admirable article on Hieroglyphics by Mr. E. S. 
Poole in the 8th ed. of the Encycl. Britannica. 

2 According to Ewald it was not invented by the Phoenicians {Luc, 



136 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xm. 

arrived at. "We find then at once that the name of each 
letter is the name of some object, and the foom of the 
letter a rude representation of the form of the object. 
Thus :— 

55 Aleph = an ox; originally V an ox's head.* 

2 Beth = a house; sometimes H ^ tent (nearly as in 
Chinese). 

i Grimel = a camel; the form representing its neck 
or hump. 
' *i Baleth = a door ; Grreek A a tent-door. 

^ Vau= a tent-peg, or hook. 
And so on in nearly every case ; so that in the doubtful 
instances, such as n He, and D Samech,*^ we are entitled 
at once to conclude a similar parentage, though not with 
certainty discoverable. If we take other letters from 
the Grreek alphabet, which were not among the original 
(jioiviKri'ia jpa/jL/xara of Cadmus, some curious origins are 
suggested to us. Thus Simonides, the legendary in- 
ventor of the letters f , yjr, and co, is said to have invented 
the figure of the first because it resembles a saw of which 
its sound is an imitation, and the second because ^ps' 
recalls the whistling of an arrow, which the letter 
roughly represents. Of T and O, both of which are 
mythically attributed to Palamedes, tradition tells us 

Phars. iii. 220), but by the Aramseans (Plin. Nat. Hist. yii. 56). The 
name of each letter begins with the letter for which it stands. 

1 See Ewald's Hebr. Gram. § 135-140. 

2 The word samech possibly means ' a prop ; ' but may not its form, 
no less than that of the letter ID, the Greek crs, and the English S, 
represent the chief sibilant animal, the serpent? If we remember the 
curious fact that the Hebrew letters are arranged according to the mean^- 
ings, and not on any scientific principle (e. g. t and Pl (weapon and 
scrip), "I and D (hand and hoUow of hand), y and Q (eye and mouth) 
come together), then samech, if it ever stood for ' serpent,' comes appro- 
priately after : (a fish). Cf. Amos is. 3. 



CH. xiTi. OBJECTIONS TO THE IMITATIVE THEOEY. 137 

that one represents tlie flight of cranes,' and the other 
a crane standing on one leg. These last are but illus- 
trations, and very doubtful ones ; but our argument is 
this. Supposing that the forms of the Hebrew letters 
had lost even the remotest resemblance to the things 
which they once represented, — and that the names of the 
large majority of them had been phonetically corrupted, 
so as to have lost all trace of their original significance, — 
supposing, too, that other historical links in the chain 
of evidence had been broken, — still, if we could only in 
two or three cases have distinctly proved that in spite 
of these corruptions the alphabetic signs certainly had 
such an origin, would any one have hesitated about 
accepting the explanation as an adequate one for the 
entire series of letters ? Would any one have hesitated, 
even if all direct 'proof failed, and the explanation were 
merely suggested as possible ? Surely not ; and the a 
priori simplicity and naturalness of the explanation 
would help, as in the case of language, to give it imme- 
diate weight. In both cases we have direct proof to a 
considerable extent ; but even an hjrpothesis, resting on 
no direct proof, deserves attention, and sometimes even 
inspires conviction, if it be clear, adequate, and intrin- 
sically probable, particularly if it be only rivalled by 
theories which rest their claims on ' elementary unin- 
telligibility' or which begin by abandoning the problem 
altogether. But onomatopoeia, as a theory of the forma- 
tion of language, is something more than an hypothesis; 
it rests on the basis of a large induction ; and it furnishes 

* * Turbabis versus, nee litera tota volabit, 

Unam perdideris si Palamedis avem.' Mart. xiii. 75. 

i e. they bo longer represent the letter, if one crane be removed. 

' Hsec gruis effigies Palamedica porrigitur «!•.' Anson 



138 0^ LANGUAGE. ch. xiii. 

a remarkably close analogy to other processes of ttie 
human mind.^ 

So that we are not disturbed when our opponents tell 
us that we can produce few direct and indisputable 
imitations in illustration of our theory. In the first 
place it is not a fact that we can produce only a few 
even of these. We can produce more than enough for 
the purpose; and more even than might have been 
expected because the very theory as we have stated it 
admits for the rapid tendency of language to become 
mechanical by corruption.^ At first, as we have said 
already, people hate to use a word which is a mere 
sound to them, alike strange and unmeaning. Their 
own language they will use all their life without the 
vaguest consciousness of the etymology or original 
meaning of any one of its words, because it is familiar 
to them, and they are as indifferent to its obliterations 
as they are to the blurred and dinted surface of a piece 
of money in their own coinage. But they will not use 
a foreign or strange word, until, like a coin, it has been, 
to use the technical term, surfrapjoe with an image and 
superscription which they understand. If a foreign 
word be introduced they will either not use it at all, or 

* Words whether written or spoken are signs ; to convey an impression 
to others we must imitate either the sound or the shape of that which 
produced it ' L'onomatopee est done le type des langues prononcees, et 
I'hieroglyphe le type des langues ecrites.' Nodier, Diet, des Onomato^pees, 

l^y^ 2 Origin of Lang. pp. 57-61, where numerous instances are given from 
the names of horses, of ships, and of flowers. Prof. Miiller gives some 
from the names of inns (ii. 530 sqq.). Many are supplied in Philolog. 
Trans, v. 138 (by Dr. Whewell), and by Mr. Isaac Taylor in his ad- 
mirable work on Words and Places, pp. 409 sqq. Steinthal also men- 
tions a few, Gesch. d. Svrachwissensch. s. 6 : e. g. Vormund, Leumund from 
Munt protection, not from Mund mouth ; Zanktiiife for Xanthippe, &c. 



CH. XIII. OBJECTIONS TO THE IMITATIVE THEORY. 139 

not until tliey have twisted it into some shape which 
shall explain itself to them. Let any one try to intro- 
duce such a word, — not being in any sense imitative, — 
and he will find himself fail as egregiously as the 
Emperor Tiberius. We see then, from watching the 
laws and instincts still at work, that words not self- 
explicative would have had no chance of obtaining 
currency at the dawn of language, and that therefore 
the most vital and powerful roots must have been not 
arbitrary but self-explaining, i. e. imitative; and also 
that the process of phonetic corruption is such as to 
lead us to expect a priori that but few words, compared 
with the whole number, would retain a positive and 
unmistakeable trace of their primitive origin, precisely 
in the same way as, and for the same reason that, only 
a few letters in the Alphabet have retained their original 
and significant shape. ^ But if the words which retained 
such a trace were even far fewer than they are, we 

* Let us take an instance ; we assert the imitative origin of language, 
and some one objects ' But the word horse is not imitative of a neigh ;' 
and if we answer ' Yes, it ultimately was so,' people laugh. Yet horse 
is derived from the unquestionable onomatopoeia hresch 'to neigh,' 
though one cannot always bring so distinct a proof at once. Now 
assert the imitative, pictorial origin of the alphabet, and some one 
objects that Mem means * water,' and the sign D does not in the least 
resemble water. Good; but the original sign (much as in our own 
cursive character) was like the Chinese (X)(^, and represented waves. 
It would greatly assist those who really wish to arrive at truth on this 
subject, if they would bear these analogies constantly in mind ; and that 
is my reason for dwelling on them here. But the majority of those who 
know nothing about the matter content themselves with the refutation 
imphed by a stoHdly self-complacent smile ; — just as for years people used 
to refute the theory of the world's diurnal revolution on its axis. This 
(TTparioiTiK^ aXoyia is no new thing : 

* Dixeris hsec inter varicosos Centuriones, 
Continuo erassum ridet ViiLfenius ingens ; 
Et centum G-rsecos curto centusse licetur.' Pers. v. 189. 



140 0^ LANGUAGE. ch. xiir. 

should still be entitled to believe that they revealed to 
man (as has been previously explained) the great and 
wonderful discovery which lies at the root of all language 
— the discovery that the physical and spiritual worlds 
with all their phenomena are capable of analysis, of 
expression, and of communication by a world of vocal 
sounds. 

2. It is another, and perhaps it will be considered a 
more telling form of the same objection, that ^ we ^ speak 
of a cow, not of a moo ; of a lamb, not of a haa, . . . 
If this principle of onomatopoeia is applicable anywhere, 
it would be in the formation of the names of animals. 
Yet we listen in vain for any similarity between goose 
and cackling, hen and clucking, duck and quacking, 
sparrow and chirping, dove and cooing, hog and grunt- 
ing, cat and mewing, between dog and barking, yelping, 
snarling, or growling.' 

To say nothing of the fact that this aggressive sen- 
tence supplies us for its construction no less than twelve 
confessed onomatopoeias, I may perhaps refer to the entire 
answer to the previous objection, as well as to the whole 
of my second chapter ' On the Naming of Animals,' as 
a sufficient proof that we do find the principle most 
remarkably at work in the large majority of animal 
names, especially in those languages in which we should 
be most reasonable in expecting it, such as Sanskrit, 
Hebrew, Chinese, and the languages of savage tribes. 
Before entering on the argument we may oppose asser- 
tion with assertion and say with M. Nodier : ^ * La plupart 

* Lectures, i. 344-351, 1st ed, I have not shirked a single argument, 
or shadow of an argument, which I could find in these Lectures, or in 
the writings of Pott, Steinthal, &c. 

2 Diet, des Onomatojpees, p. 38. Cf. Pott, Doppelung, pp. 29. 51 sqq. 



CH. xrii. OBJECTION'S TO THE IMITATIVE THEOEY. 141 

des animaux sont caracterises par Tonomatopee.' Even 
were it true, which we shall see good reason to doubt, 
that in this handful of selected names, there is no 
trace of imitation, there are hosts of names in which 
there is such a trace, and these would be enough to 
prove the real point for which alone we have been 
contending. Such, for instance, are horse, buck, hog, 
cow, ai-ai, agouti, lion,^ kooloo-kamba, cuckoo, crow, 
crane, crake, quail, peewhit, chough, owl, buzzard, sand- 
piper, pigeon,^ daw, tit, finch, whip-poor-will, cricket, &c. 
That there are numerous instances where the ultimate 
name has been derived from some other attribute of 
the animal is only what we should expect in the growth 
of language. Although the names here urged against 
us are mostly onomatopoetic, it would be quite easy to 
select as many that are not. The selection of such 
instances as a disproof of our principle would be analo- 
gous, as an argument, to the inference that the names of 
animals in the Eomance languages are not derived from 
Latin because renard, blaireau, belette, mouton, crapeau, 
hochequeue, moineau, have no connection with vulpes, 
meles, mustela, ovis, rana, motacilla, or passer ; or that 
the names of birds are not generally onomatopoetic — 
though even the ancients^ had observed this fact, — 
because redbreast, wagtail, eagle, vulture, falcon, may 
not be. ' The most immediate and the most naive 
sensations of a people always end,' says M. Nodier, ^ by 

* Hebr. ^5^17, 'rugiendi sonum imitans,' Gesen. Thes. s. v. Cf. 

G-erm. Lowe ; and the old Egyptian mouee. The tame agouti is frem its 

cry C0U1/. 

2 From the onomatop, pipi, pipire. Vid. Diez, s. v. Piccione, 

^ 2x^'5oj' yap TCI, TrAeiff-Ta rwv opvioov airh ttjs (pwvijs e^et tt]u ff7]iJ.a(Tiav. 

Athen. ix. 392. This is especially the case in Latin : grus, gracculus, 

bubo, strix, buteo, &c. Pott, Doppehmg, p. 51. • 



142 OIS^ LA^'GUAGE. ch. xiii. 

disappearing before its illusions.' For instance, almost 
every name given to the species of the genus Groatsucker 
is an onomatopoeia ( (7/i^6r7^-owl, Night-jar, Spinner, Jar- 
owl, &c.), of which an Australian variety is called More- 
pork, an American variety Whip-poor-will, and another 
(Caprimulgus Lyra) Chuck Will's Widow, each of these 
names being crude analogies from its cry: yet over 
these natural and distinctive names how constantly 
prevails the name AlyoOTjXijs, caprimulgus, tete-chevre, 
Ziegenmelker, Eussian kozodoi, goatsucker, &c., from a 
stupid superstition as old as the time of Aristotle {Hist, 
Anim. ix. 30, 2), which is not even yet extinct. 

I will not however rest on any of these general 
considerations, but will at once come still more closely 
to the point and examine each of the words iMch Mr, 
Max Muller has himself chosen to disprove our theory ; 
taking his argument sentence by sentence from the 
beginning. Nearly every paragraph will show whether 
there is any ground for his allegation that 'most of 
these onomatopoeias vanish as we trace our own names 
back to Anglo-Saxon and Grothic, or compare them with 
# their cognates in G-reek, Latin, or Sanskrit.' Ee versing 
this sentence, we should be inclined to say that on the 
contrary it is only by such tracing and comparing 
that we can, in many cases, prove the imitative nature of 
the word. 

' We speak of a cow, not of a moo.'' A strange 
instance this! since 'cow,' as we have seen already, 
is unquestionably imitative in origin, and is admitted 
to be so, if one must quote an authority, by M. Pictet 
himself. Yet simply because the imitation is not o6- 
vious, a child has to learn how to get at the word cow, by 
crossing to it over the onomatopoeic stepping-stone 'moo." 



CH. XIII. OBJECTIONS TO THE IMITATIVE THEOEY. 143 

' Of a lamb, not of a baa.^ Yet the Sanskrit word 
for a ram is bheda, as the Danish is beede, and the 
French belier ; and all three come from baa ! The 
derivation of Mamb,' like that of several names for 
sheep, is uncertain, so we will say nothing about it, 
only as before calling attention to the consequent 
necessity for the imitative stepping-stone baa-lamb, and 
to the fact that if ' lamb ' be not imitative, many words 
for lamb in other languages are, e. g. the Swiss baageli, 
the Swedish bagge, the Malay biri-biri, 

' There is no connection between goose and cackling,^ 
Are we so sure of this ? Almost certainly there is. Mr. 
Wedgwood mentions that in Lithuania guz-gnz is a cry 
to call geese ; but setting this aside, and accepting the 
Aryan and non-interjectional origin of the word, it is 
derived from the Sanskrit haiisa; Grreek xn^ I Lat. anser ; 
Germ, gans, &c^ And what is the derivation of hansa ? 
Let M, Pictet, always anxious to avoid an onomatopoeia 
when he can, tell us : 'La racine est probablement has, 
rider e, par allusion au cri pen melodieux de I'oiseau 
et a la maniere dont 11 ouvre son bee pour le pousser' 
(Les Aryas Primitifs, i. 388). ' Groose ' then is a word 
which, so far from having ' no connection with cackling,' 
is doubly imitative, and is solely suggested by cackling ! ^ 
And this its imitative character is further established 
by the fact that a similar root for the name is discover- 
able all over the world, from Iceland to Japan, not only 

' The French oie is from avicula, an interesting instance of the use of 
the general for the special, and a proof of the value attached to the bird ; 
compare our ' birds ' for * partridges.' 

2 It is connected with many other onomatopoeias, such as x"'*"^) yawn, 
gacJcern, gingrire, Sze. WiiUner, Urspr. d. Sprache, s. 27. The name 
of the bird is almost always imitative — Swedish gaas, Danish gaas, 
Mexican Halacatl, &c. 



144 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xiir. 

in Aryan, but even in the remotest allophylian lan- 
guages ! ^ Moreover in other instances the name given 
to the bird is an unconcealed onomatopoeia, as for 
instance in the Scotch claih or clake, 

' There is no smiilarity between hen and clucking^ 
To expect ' similarity ' is to misunderstand the condi- 
tions of the problem, as already explained. Neverthe- 
less the name ' hen ' (Sanskrit Kanaka^ Persian Rank, 
Grerman Hahn, Huhn, Henne) is as certainly imitative 
as is cock, and expresses clucking distinctly enough. 
Of the Sanskrit Kuhkuta, Pictet says: ^C'est la une 
onomatopee que Ton retrouve dans I'ancien Slave 
kokoshu, &c.' Kukkubha is *un autre nom imitatif.' 
Krkavdku is still more remarkable, being formed from 
vdku,"^ the creature that cries krka, * un mot par lui- 
meme imitatif du cri guttural ' (Pictet, i. 396). Even 
Professor Pott, who is always most cautious in admitting 
an onomatopoeia, sees it without hesitation in the word 
cock, quoting the verb cucurire,^ a distinct invention 
for the purpose, adopted by the author of ' Philomela :' 

• Cucurrire solet gallus, gallina gracillat,' 1, 25. 

^ There is no similarity between a duck and quack- 
ing,^ As we have already proved and illustrated, the 

' It is citrioTis to observe that Varro — knowing of course nothing 
whatever about the origin of the word — did instinctively find a ' similarity 
between goose and cackling;' for he says, ' De his plercsque ab suis 
vocibus, ut hsec : upupa, euculus, corvus, hirundo, ulula, bubo ; item haec : 
pavo, ANSER, gallina, columba.' De Ling. Lat. v. 75. 

2 Formed on the exact analogy of the African kooloo-kamba, the 
creature which cries Jcooloo (Du Chaillu's travels) ; and the Galla dada- 
goda, for which see Wedgwood, i. v. 

^ See his paper Zur CuUurgeschichte (on the names of fowl and goat). 
I do not know where it appeared. Professor Pott was so kind as to send 
me a copy of the paper. 



CH. XIII. OBJECTIONS TO THE IMITATIVE THEOEY. 145 

objective repercussion of a subjective impression in 
many cases neither aims at nor pretends to ^ similarity ' 
even in the first instance, and much less after the 
phonetic modification of centuries. And next, the name 
* duck ' is derived from the same root as the Grerman 
^ tauchen,' from the animal's habit of diving ; but duck, 
tauchen, dab, dive, &c., are imitative in origin, although 
here the imitation is not from the sound which the bird 
makes. Yet from this sound we have the name Trairla 
a duck in modern Grreek, which Diefenbach compares 
with the Italian papero a gosling, and the Spanish 
parpar to quack. ^ 

' Between sparrow and chirping.^ Sparrow is a very- 
doubtful word, but if we compare such cognate forms 
as sprew, spreuve, sparaviere, &c., it is impossible to 
assert that it was not originally mimetic ; and we fully 
believe it was.^ And if we hear no chirp in the word 
' sparrow,' we do in the names of many other birds which 
twitter and chirp, as, for instance, 0-77/770*, aTrl^a, 
pinson, finch, fringilla,^ linnet, pipit, tit, &c. 

'Between dove and cooing;^ — but there is a direct 
similarity between cooing and the synonyms for dove, 
turtle, culver, pigeon (from pipi, v. ante), and cushat,* 

' Wedgwood, i. 497. The names anas, vri(T<ra, the Prench canard, 
the Mongol ngusun, &c. are frobahly imitative. Wiillner, TIrspr. d. 
Sjjrache, s. 27. 

2 May it not be connected with the Greek ^ap ' a starling,' an imita- 
tive word from if/aipco, I scrape ? The mere confusion between starling 
and sparrow is nothing, because instances of much more startling inter- 
changes of name may be adduced, as in Tulpes 'fox ' and wolf, &c. 

3 The Sanskrit bhrnga, which also means a bumble-bee ; ' ce qui 
ne laisse ancnn doute snr son caract^re d'onomatopee.' Pictet, i. 486. 

* Which Pictet derives from cu cow, and sceotan to rush — the bird 
that rushes to cows ! ! ! He makes the Anglo-Saxon cidufre, ' culver,' mean 
cow-lover ; surely it would be even better than tliis to connect it with the 

L 



146 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xrii. 

so that out of five names four are from the bird's mur- 
muring voice. But besides this, ^dove' is connected 
with dive, dab (cf. cZa6-chick5 tajp, &c.), from the very 
remarkable characteristic which it has of ducking ^ the 
head, whence too is derived the Latin columba (cf. 
KoXv/uL^dco) ; and therefore dove no less than duck is 
imitative, though not from the bird's voice. 

' There is no similarity between hog and grunting.^ 
Surely a most unfortunate assertion, as will be very 
apparent from Mr. Wedgwood's note on the word. ' Hog. 
Breton, hoc'h houc''h, swine, from houc'ha to grunt. So 
Lap. snorkeset to grunt, snorke a pig, &c.' Moreover, 
' grunter ' is in English an actual synonym for pig, as 
Mr. Tennyson shows us : — 

If thou be he, or draggled mawkin thou 
That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge. 

The Princess. 

With the Italian ciacco, the French cochon and goret 
(cf. ')(p[pos), the Eussian cushka, or, — not to quote the 
invariably imitative name in other Aryan languages, — 
the Sanskrit sukara (qui fait su, son imitatif pour 
grognement,' cf. sivine, &c.) before him, it is strange 
that Professor Miiller should have hazarded this instance. 
' There is no similarity bettueen cat and mewing ! ' 
Not in English, at first sight, but in the most ancient 
of tongues — the Chinese — a cat is * Miau ! ' The word 
^ cat ' is traced back by Pictet to an African origin, and 
so it is impossible to say whether or no its original form 
was imitative. That it was so seems very probable 

Sanskrit kalarava, * I'oiseau dont la voix est un murmure.' The analo- 
gies of goatsucker and bergeronette for wag-tail, and Pferdehiiter for a 
Peruvian bird, and Vyaghrata, tiger-goer, for lark, &c. are not to the 
point, since there is no connection between pigeons and cows. 
1 Cf. Pictet, i. 400. Wedgwood, s. v. 



CH. XIII. OBJECTIONS TO THE IMITATIVE THEORY. 147 

from the imitative forms which several developments 
of the word take, of which the most striking is the 
Grerman Katze, which, I must repeat (whatever may 
have been its origin), * obviously catches an echo of the 
animal's remarkable spit,' as is rendered nearly certain 
by a comparison of the Wallachian metze,^ pisice; 
unless indeed it be from the sound made in calling 
the animal, like the Polish kic kid, and the English 
puss. If so, then in this case, as in the cries made in 
calling a pig (cushu cushu, chig chig, &c.), we see the 
various points of possible origin for an onomatopoetic 
word ; it is one of the many instances which connect a 
Lautgeberde with an imitation. In other words we see 
that the sound made by an animal is often instiQctively 
adopted as the sound to invite or repel its approach, and 
so passes into the animal's name. 

Lastly, ' there is no shnilarity between dog and bark- 
ing, yelping, or snarling.'' Is it certain ? The Icelandic 
' doggr^ at any rate looks very like a growl ;^ and, if 
not, the synonyms Hound, Grerman Hund, Grreek Kvcov, 
Canis, the Sanskrit Qvan, are distinctly imitative, and 
are recognised as such by Pictet, who adds that, except 
on the imitative principle, it is impossible to account 
for the wide similarity between the names for the dog 
among various nations. A name bow-wow might, 
indeed, have been invented, 'yet, strange to say, we 
hardly ever find a civilised language in which the dog 



* Diez, s. V. Gatto ; and Wedgwood, Et. Diet. 

2 To say nothing of the fact that the dog furnishes to language his 
full share of onomatopoeias ; such as the words i8ai5{co, baubari, vXaKretv, 
better, aboyer, pvyxos, knurren, &c. In some Canadian languages thd 
dog is called gagnenon. 

L 2 



148 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xiii. 

was so called' (ii. 312). True, and for this perhaps a 
very sufficient reason may be given. Although as far 
back as history carries us the dog has been a domesti- 
cated animal, yet it must at one time have been wild, 
and it may probably have received a name, or some of 
its names, while in this condition. Now it is at least 
doubtful whether the hark is a dog^s natural utterance, 
and whether in its original state the dog did bark. 
For whole races of dogs, and perhaps it may be said all 
wild dogs, do not know how to bark, — for instance the 
Esquimaux dogs, and those which run wild in the 
Pampas, in Chili, and in the Antilles, which only howl. 
Indeed Prichard,^ who notices this fact, mentions the 
conjecture that the dog's bark 'originated in an at- 
tertipt to imitate the human voice ! ' If this conjecture, 
however apparently ludicrous, be correct, then men will 
have contributed more to the language of dogs, than 
dogs to the language of men ; for, as Dr. Daniel Wilson ^ 
observes, the words bark, yelp, howl, snap, snarl, whine, 
whimper, are ^ words directly derived from the dog 
language ! ' At any rate it is certain that the dogs 
left by the Spaniards on Juan Fernandez to destroy the 
goats on which the pirates fed, had, when found thirty 
years afterwards by Don Antonio Ulloa, forgotten how 
to bark, and only imitated very awkwardly the bark of 
other dogs. It is known too that some puppies brought 
by Mackenzie from Western America were unable to 
bark, though their puppies acquired the power. There 
would be a reason then why how-wow should not be the 

^ Prichard, l^af. Hist, of Man, p. 33 (ed. Norris). JRev. des Deux 
Mondes, Feb. 1, 1861. 

2 Prehistoric Man, i. 83. Many German words, as winseln, heulen, 
&c., might have been added. 



CH. XIII. OBJECTIONS TO THE IMITATIVE THEORY. 149 

particular form assumed by any onomatopoetic name 
of the dog. 

'What really took place was this,' says Professor 
Miiller rather dogmatically. ' The mind received nu- 
merous impressions from everything that came within 
its ken. A dog did not stand before it at once pro- 
perly defined and classified, but it was defined under 
different aspects, — now as a savage animal, now as a 
companion, sometimes as a watcher, sometimes as a thief, 
occasionally as a swift hunter, at other times as a coward 
or an unclean beast. From every one of these impres- 
sions a name might be framed, and after a time the 
process of natural elimination would reduce the number 
of these names, and leave only a few or only one, which 
like canis would become the proper name of the dog ' 
(ii. 312). Now, would it not be amazing if the raost 
obvious aspect of all, — the noise made by the animal, 
which would be the first thing noticed about it, as it is 
the first thing noticed by all children, — -should not have 
contributed one of the characteristics which suggested a 
name ? Secondly, observe that the name which in the 
Aryan family did prevail was the one derived from the 
onomatopoeia gvan. Thirdly, observe that out of five 
Sanskrit names for dog, three are imitative, viz. Qvan^ 
rudatha from rud (rudire) ' I'animal qui hurle et gemit,' 
and bhacha ' the barker ' from the root bhach, to bark ! 
Do not these facts speak for themselves ? 

Surely therefore, even when we meet Professor 
Miiller on ground selected by himself, we can abund- 
antly vindicate the applicability of our theory, — throw- 
ing, we trust, some further light on the nature of the 
theory in the course of our enquiry. We have dwelt 
upon it in detail because he does so, being desirous. 



150 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xiii. 

from his well-merited authority in all matters of philo- 
logy, to give full consideration to all the arguments on 
the subject which we could find in his writings, and to 
state the reasons why they do not carry conviction to 
our minds. To us the answer appears complete and 
convincing. 



151 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

FEETILITY OF ONOMATOPOETIC BOOTS* 

* Sed cunctas species animantum nemo notabit, 
Atque sonos ideo dicere quis poterit ? ' 

Alb. Ov. Juventinus, Philomel. 68. 

In his second series of Lectures^ the Professor returns 
to the attack with undiminished vigour, and as though 
he felt the insecurity of the outpost which we have just 
been trying to carry by assault, he entirely abandons it, 
and retreats behind another which is presumed to be 
more strongly fortified. In point of fact he cedes by 
implication his previous position ; ' Ibi omnis effusus 
labor I ' Nevertheless, as the cession is only apparent, 
we do not regret the trouble we have taken to secure 
our ground ; and so we proceed to the new points of 
attack and defence. 

'The onomatopoeic theory,' he says (Lectures, ii. 91), 
' goes very smoothly as lov-g as it deals with cackling 
hens and quacking ducks ; but round that poultry-yard 
there is a dead wall, and we soon find that it is behind 
that wall that laDguage really begins.' 

So far as this means merely that natural imitations 
are not in themselves language, but only the materials 
of it, and the stepping-stones to it, we not only agree 
with such a view but have from the first been asserting 
and illustrating it. If however it means that out of 



152 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xiv. 

the sphere of animal names the imitative principle is 
excluded from its immense share in the elements of 
language, then we must once more emphatically dissent. 
For the meaning will then be the same as that which 
has so often been asserted in other forms, and which 
we will consider as the third objection, viz. that 

3. Onomatopoeias are ' like artificial flowers without 
a root. They are sterile, and are unfit to express any- 
thing beyond the one object which they imitate.' 

Professor Miiller illustrates this by saying that there 
are but few derivatives from the root ' cuck,' which is 
found in cuckoo, and cock, and that ' cuckoo stands by 
itself like a stick in a living hedge.' Heyse implies the 
same (s. 92) by his remark that many onomatopoeias 
are not ' old fruitful roots of language, but modern 
inventions which remain isolated in language, and are 
incapable of originating any families of words, because 
their meaning is too limited and special to admit of a 
manifold application.' 

There is a certain prima facie truth in this remark, 
but it seems to us wholly immaterial to the question 
before us, which is merely this, ' Did language originate 
from interjectional and imitative roots?' With the 
reasons urged against the interjectional origin we have 
already dealt ; and it is surely no refutation whatever 
of the imitative origin of another great division of 
language to say that some imitative roots (and especially 
modern ones) are infructuous, or nearly so. The jpau- 
city of the original roots of Language is an admitted 
fact, and if the difficult combination of c's or k's in 
' cuckoo ' be a root of which little use is made we cannot 
be surprised, although even from this root, as Professor 
Miiller himself admits, various words have been derived. 



CH. XIV. FERTILITY OF ONOMATOPOETIC EOOTS. 153 

and the list of derivatives might be largely increased ; ^ — 
but at any rate there are plenty of other roots which we 
believe to be imitative, and some which every one luill 
admit to be so, which so far from being sterile are ' the 
mothers of thousands.' On the very page from which 
we have been quoting, Professor Miiller supplies us with 
one, — the root ru or kru, which passes through all kinds 
of fruitful metamorphoses, and ' has ever so many rela- 
tions from a rumour to a row.' But this, says the Pro- 
fessor, 'is derived from a root which has a general 
predicative power. It is not a mere imitation of the 
cry of the raven; it embraces many cries from the 
harshest to the softest.' Here apparently we are at issue. 
For whether the root was originally suggested by the cry 
of the raven or not, — and this is a matter on which dogma- 
tism is impossible, — it is most certainly a natural sound, 
a sound caught from nature, an imitative sound, and 
therefore the words formed from it were formed in 
strictest conformity with the Imitative theory, ' It 
might have been applied to the nightingale as well as 
to the raven,' says Prof. Miiller. In the absence of any 
proof we should hold this to be very questionable, but 
if so it only shows how exquisitely delicate were the 
nuances which a word might receive by differences of 
pronunciation. Every one will admit that crow and 
croon are onomatopoeias ; yet the one is used of the 
harsh caw of the rook, and the other of the soft moan 
of doves. Every one will admit that these names of the 
grasshopper in different languages — Sanskrit giri, Ar- 
menian dzghrid, Grreek ypvWos, Cymric grilliedyz, 
Basque quirquirra, Mahratta rdlra, Chinese sirsor, 

^ The verb to cock, cog, cockade, coquet, coxcomb, &c. ; in short, so 
many that even this root cannot be called a sterile one. 



154 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xiv. 

Hebrew tsldtsdl, and many more which might be ad- 
duced ^ — are all imitative: — yet how immensely are 
they varied by the fantasies of imitation ! How is this 
to be explained ? Simply by the fact to which it is so often 
necessary to recur, that words are not mere imitations 
but subjective echoes and reproductions — repercussions 
which are modified both organically and ideally— which 
have moreover been immensely blurred and disinte- 
grated by the lapse of ages. Koka in Sanskrit is a 
confessed onomatopcjeia, and it means a goose, a cuckoo, 
a frog, a lizard, and a wolf. How wide then must be 
the differences expressed by one and the same imita- 
tion ! But we leave it to the reader whether it is more 
reasonable to suppose that the root ' kru ' was a ' pho- 
netic type,' having *a general predicative power,' 
arrived at by abstraction from the combined influence 
of all sorts of noises from the murmur of rivers, and 
the barking of dogs, to the songs of nightingales, — -or 
to suppose with us that it was an imitative root, the 
echo of some one distinct sensuous impression, which 
subsequently was modified to suit other sounds, and 
which passed through a whole cycle of meanings by the 
working of processes which we shall hereafter consider ? 
Which of the two suppositions is most in accordance 
with common probability, and with the remarkable 
feebleness of the power of abstraction among all unci- 
vilised men ? 

But we shall perhaps best refute the asserted sterility 
of imitative roots, by producing a few instances of the 

* Pietet, i. 528. Our blunted senses can no more realise the original 
delicacy of tlie appellative faculty than they can attain to the keen 
perfection in which they still exist in the savage. Lepsius, Faldogr. 
p. 21, quoted by Pott, Etym. ForscJi. ii. 261. 



CH. XIV. FERTILITY OF ONOMATOPOETIC ROOTS. 155 

vast range of conceptions which they have been made to 
express. If, in a few traceable instances, an onomatopoeia 
be found to fructify so far as to convey notions and impres- 
sions which might be thought to be infinitely removed 
from the possibility of even a metaphorical expression 
by sounds borrowed from the outer world, we shall 
see that these sounds, raw and vulgar as they may 
originally have been, were the natural sound- cells ^ in 
which thought was quickened and developed into perfect 
speech. Whether the earliest origin of a word can be 
definitely ^proved or not, let it be considered that the 
choice rests in every case between an ultimate imita- 
tion or interjection — and nothing. Most etymologists 
when they have got to a root stop there, at the most 
interesting point of the enquiry, pretending to offer no 
explanation whatever of the root itself, although if they 
could do so they would obviously be throwing a flood of 
light on the whole history of the word, and would also 
be inevitably illustrating the influence of certain pri- 
mary psychological laws, the observation of which is of 
the utmost importance both to philosophy and history. 
It is true that the Mimetic School (if I may be allowed 
such a term in treating of a subject in which the nomen- 
clature is as yet cumbrous and only tentative) must 
often stop short of what they believe to be the final 
step of Etymology ; but this does not detract from the 
value of their actual results, nor diminish their belief in 
the principle on which they rely. The principle indeed 
is one which requires the less proof, because we see its 

* The prominence recently given to Mr. Darwin's theories naturally 
suggests this metaphor. Since writing it I have met with Aug. 
Schleicher's pamphlet (previously referred to) on the bearings of Lan- 
guage upon the hypothesis of development. 



156 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xiv. 

daily-working and powerful effect even on living lan- 
guages, and especially in the process of their earliest 
acquisition. 

Let us look at the history of one or two imitative 
roots, and I think that we shall definitely 'prove how 
little they deserve the charge of steriUty. 

For instance, let us take some of the simplest and 
earliest roots, — beginning with ma. From the fact that 
it is among the most facile, and therefore among the 
earliest sounds uttered by children, we have it (and 
cognate sounds) first applied in almost all languages to 
name the simplest and tenderest and earliest known of 
relationships, — ^ motherhood.' This is not an hypothesis 
but a certainty ; Mt is one of those linguistic discoveries 
which must be accepted as established facts from which 
to start in all enquiries about the origin of language. 
' It is impossible to doubt,' says M. Pictet, ' of their 
nature, — purely phonetic and imitative of the earliest 
infantile syllables, — when one finds them reappear 
among the most diverse nations. The reduplications 
papa, mama, so familiar to our European ears, have 
astonished more than one traveller who discovered them 
among the negroes of Africa, no less than among the 
savages of America and Oceania.' ^ For a comparative 
list of such terms we must refer to the interesting and 
ingenious essay of Buschmann Ueber den Naturlaut, 
In it he points out that this identity of terms is due to 
the fact we have mentioned, and is no proof whatever 

^ Lists have often been published. Among others, see Nodier, Diet, 
des Onomatopees, pp. 18-21 (taken from De Brosse). 

2 Pictet, ii. 348. The fact that in Sanskrit and most Aryan lan- 
guages they are attached to a verbal root in no way detracts from 
their imitative origin. 



CH. XIV. FERTILITY OF ONOMATOPOETIC ROOTS. 157 

of the connection or relationship of Languages. It is 
one of the merits of the Imitative theory that it explains, 
not in this case only but many others, the similarity of 
a few words in languages which, as may be easily proved, 
are neither genetically nor historically connected with 
each other, but which have probably been separate from 
the very dawn of human life. 

But the root ma (or am,^ which is the same thing) 
does not remain sterile. We get from it at once, — as we 
should expect alike from the limited range of a child's 
experience and his limited command of articulate 
sounds — a name for other relations, — as the Latin amita 
aunt, the German amme^ a nurse, the Spanish -and 
Portuguese ama a housewife, amo master of a house, 
amma screech-owl from its supposed affection for its 
young (cf. stork from arspyco), — and, indeed, in all pro- 
bability the root ' amo ' ^ I love, with all its immense 
stream of derivatives. 

Then by an easy and natural transference we get 
the Latin maTyima, the breast, which is also found with 
the same meaning all over the world ; and the Dutch 

^ Cf. Hebr. DX=motlier, grandmotlier, &e. It is strange tliat Plato 
does not in the Cratches notice this syllable, which would have afforded 
so singularly strong an illustration of the point contended for (viz. the 
intrinsic meaning and appropriateness of certain consonants) in sections 
91-94. C. Lenorman sees in this reticence ' une reservation conseillee 
^ar la gravite religieuse de cette syllable jxv, qui est le nom meme des 
mysteres.' Comment, sur le Cratyle, p. 275. 

2 Diez, ed. Donkin, s. v. Ama; and cf. Pictet, ii. 350. 

^ We say ' in all probability.' If any one prefers to suppose that 
* amo ' is from the Sanskrit am ' to rush forward,' he may ; and he will 
have Professor Miiller on his side. (Lectures, ii. 91.) Let me here 
observe that the mere production of some analogous Sanskrit form as 
the derivation of a word is by no means a refutation of its imitative 
origin. I have already called attention to many admitted Sanskrit 
onomatopoeias. 



158 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xiv. 

7}ioeder the womb, &c. And so by simple laws of asso- 
ciation we get to the English mam^met,^ Swiss mdmmi 
a doll, Grerman memme a coward, and memmerei pol- 
troonery. So widely and so rapidly does the ripple 
spread on the surface of language ! 

Equally universal, equally fruitful, and equally rapid 
in its development is the cognate root pa. In Greek 
alone we have irarrip a father, iraTrTros a grandfather, 
TraTTTrd^o) to wheedle and to prattle, Trdiriros the first 
down on the cheek of youth, m-aTTiroairspfiara the 
bearded seeds of the dandelion, TraTTTrcoBrjs woolly. In 
Latin we have papparium (the English pap), and 
papilla the bosom (cf. mammilla). In Sardinian 
papal to eat, in Italian (and Russian) pappo bread ; 
in Spanish and Portuguese (connected with papilla) 
we have papo a dewlap, or anything fat and puffy. 
Then from Papa as a title of respect, we get Pope, 
Papist, Papistry. In Grerman we have Pappe in the 
sense of paste, pasteboard. 

Thus from some of the most obvious derivatives of 
two very simple imitative roots we at once and without 
any shadow of difficulty get meanings so different, and 
apparently so much beyond the range of onomatopoetic 
representation, as aunt, owl, breast, doll, coward, dande- 
lion-seed, bread, a fatty protuberance, the Pope of 
Rome, and pasteboard ! Who after this shall assert 
the sterility of imitative roots ? 

From ta and da, two other of the earliest sounds, we 
get to dade,^ an old English word for teaching a child 

1 Not to be confounded with Mawmet (from Mahomet). See Wedg- 
wood, ii. 372. 

2 Vide Diez (ed. Donkin), s. w. Bandin and Tartagliare. Wedgwood, 
6. V. Bade. 



CH. XIV. FERTILITY OF ONOMATOPOETIC ROOTS. 159 

to walk ; to toddle^ to dawdle, to dandle ; the French 
dandin a simpleton; the Italian dandolo a toy, and 
tartagliare. to stutter; the Dutch tateren to stammer; 
the Icelandic totta to suck, teat, &c. (cf. tItOt], &c.) 

Again, from ba, to mention only a few out of many, 
we have in Latin babiger,^ bubulus, and baburrus stu- 
pid (Grioss. Isid.), babcecalus sl trifler (Arnob. iv. 141), 
basium, buss, a kiss ; in Grreek we have ^ajSd^co, 
^a/jb/SaXl^sLv, 1 stammer ; in Hebrew bb^ confundere, 
?3l Babel,^ Babylon. In the Eomance languages 
babbo a father (Ital.), babbuino baboon, beffa a scoffing 
(shooting out the lips), babbeo a blockhead, bambino 
a doll, bava ^ slaver (cf. Bavieca the name of the Cid's 
charger), Spanish babosa a slug, badare to gape ; then 
through the Scotch word *^abeigh' to stand gazing or 
gaping at a thing, we have ' abeyance,' and * to stand at 
bay,' &c. In French we have babines large lips, beyer, 
havardage, babiller, babiole, &c^ In English babe, 
babble, baboon, baffle, &c. We have not nearly ex- 
hausted the list, and indeed the fertility of this root 
may perhaps form the excuse or apology for those vqry 
bold theorists who have erroneously supposed that the 
letter B is a picture of the closed lips requisite for the 
enunciation of this important labial.^ 

Again, from ta and ba as emblematic of early, confused, 
inarticulate sounds we get such national names as Tatars, 
from ta-ta the Chinese onomatopoeia for a barbarian. 



* See Forcellini, Lex. Tot. Lat. s. w. 

2 'Efipaioi yap ttjj/ aiyx^^'-^ Ba/SeA. KaXovcn. Jos. Antt. i, 5. Compare 
our ' babble.' 

^ Diez, Wedgwood, Nodier, Seheler, &e. 

* Nodier, Notions de Linguistique, p. 24. 

* For the odd notion of Pierius Valerianus, see Orig. of Lang. p. 75. 



160 OX LAJs^GUAGE. ch. xiv. 

whose language sounds to them like a mere collection 
of meaningless noises, — and the word barbarian ^ itself 
from the Sanskrit varvara a jabberer or confused 
talker. Of similar origin is the name Zamzummim,^ 
applied by the Hebrews to one of the primitive tribes 
of Palestine, and transferred, from an instinctive 
sense of its derivation, as a nickname to the fanatics in 
the seventeenth century who pretended to speak with 
tongues, precisely as St. Paul applies the word ^dp^apos 
in 1 Cor. xiv. 11. Possibly the word Hottentot, and 
certainly the word Walsch (from Sanskrit mlech), and 
the Hebrew ^V/ (from iV^ to stammer, Ps. Ixiii. 1), 
illustrate the same curious fact, — of which, indeed, we 
see daily instances, — that ignorant people of all races 
and ages regard the language of foreigners as an un- 
meaning babble. For the surprisingly numerous de- 
velopments of this word bar through almost every shade 
of meaning we must refer our readers to the pages of 
Diez, Wedgwood, and other etjonologists. 

Ohe jam satis! we imagine that we hear the reader 
sigh ; nevertheless for the sake of the argument we 
must detain him a little longer. From the imitation 
then of inarticulate sounds we get such words as irdros^ 
irarsLV ; French patte a foot, patin a skate, patois a 
dialect; English patten (cf. pittle-pattle, pit-a-pat). 
From the labial m attached to various vowels to re- 
produce low sounds we get to hum, to mutter, muzzle. 



^ Kar ovojiaroTTodav cttI twv dv(reK(p6pas Koi rpax^us Koi crKXripus 
KaXovvTwv, Suid. See the Author's article on ' Barbarian' in Dr. Smith's 
Diet of the Bible, i. 166 ; and cf. Types of Mankind, p. 560 ; Pictet, Orig. 
Ind. i. p. 55; Eenan, Langues Semitiques, i. 35; and ]\Ir. Is. Taylor's 
Words and Places, pp. 67, 87. 

2 See Mr. Grrove, s. v. Zamsummim, Diet, of the Bible. 



CH. XIV. FERTILITY OF ONOMATOFOETIC BOOTS. IGl 

mute, and to be mum for to be silent, whence 
come mummery, and mumble, and mumps ; from the 
same root come the French Tiiot a word, and motto, as 
we see from the line of Lucilius, ^Non audet dicere 
rauttum ; ' the Latin mussare, muse, and music, and 
amuse; musca a fly, and musket, — for which latter 
word and its curious history we must refer to Diez and 
Scheler, — the Grreek fjuv^o), and mystery with all its cog- 
nates. Beyond such a word as this language can hardly 
proceed ; — it dashes itself in vain against the 'flammantia 
moenia mundi,' the adamantine barrier which separates 
the temporal from the spiritual, the unseen from the 
seen. It is one of those words which, as lamblichus 
says, ^ being more excellent than every image is yet 
expressed by an image.' Yet to this distance Language 
attains by barely a single stride from the simple imita- 
tion of the sound naturally produced by closing the 
lips. Mr. Miiller derives m^utus from the Sanskrit mu 
to bind, and contemptuously refuses to give up either 
it, or many other words for which we should claim an 
imitative origin, ' to the Onomatopoeic School.' In this 
we are convinced that he will find very few followers. 
That fiv (like mum) is simply a natural sound made by 
closing the lips, and that from it come first /jlvo), then 
/jLvsco, then /jLvcrr7]9, then /juvarijpiov, and a number of 
derivatives of every shade of meaning from fivaos 
' hatred ' to i^v^os ' a corner,' ^vkos ' phlegm,' and 
fjLVK'qs ^a mushroom,' seems to us a fact which can 
hardly be seriously denied. Dr. Liddell and Dr. Scott 
collect no less than forty-six such derivatives under the 
word fivco, and that number might very easily be doubled 
in G reek alone. So much then for the sterilit}' of ono- 
matopoeias! 



162 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xiv. 

Perhaps if any one class of words could be chosen as 
presenting an insuperable obstacle to the endeavour to 
trace them from an imitative origin, it would be the 
class of numerals, the existence of which is due to one 
of the greatest efforts of analysis and abstraction — an 
effort in fact such, that to this day many savage tribes 
have not attained to it. Even Plato ^ argued that the 
existence of numerals at any rate must depend on cus- 
tom and convention, since it was impossible that there 
could be any resemblance between the name of a nu- 
meral and the number which it indicated. In modern 
times the progress of comparative philology has thrown 
a flood of light on the origin of the numerals ; it has 
shown the pronominal origin of the first, second, and 
third numerals, and it is most probable that all three 
sprang from interjectional or imitative elements ; for 
instance the Sanskrit ekas^ one is etymologically con- 
nected with aham ' I,' in which there is nothing fan- 
ciful in supposing that (as in the Hebrew nin) we 
catch a very natural reproduction of the act of respira- 
tion. There is however one numeral which comes 
from an onomatopoeia pur et simple. It is the word 
' myriad,' which is undoubtedly connected with the root 
fivpct), I roll or flow. ^The derivation of the idea of a 
large number from the sight of water falling in infinite 
drops is too obvious,' says Dr. Donaldson,-^ ' to require 
any remark.' No one, we hope, will now deny the con- 

^ iirel, S) ^eXriffre, el OeXeis irr\ rhu apid/xov eA0etv, iroBev oUi e|eiz/ 
ovSjxara ofioia eul eKdcrrcf t<3z/ apiOfxcov iTTsueyKelv, iav fir) ias ri r^v (T^v 
ojxoXoyiav koX (TvvQiiK'nv Kvpos e^eiy rcov ovofioLTCov opQ6rriros ir4pi. Plato, 
Crat. p. 435. 

2 Bopp, Vergl. Gram. §§ 309 sqq. Donaldson, Crat. § 154, &c. 

3 Cratylus, § 163, where he also supposes a relationship between %£« 
flow, x'^os fodder, and x'^'ot thousands. 



CH. XIV. FERTILITY OF ONOMATOPOETIC ROOTS. 163 

nection ^ between ixupoi and the obvious onomatopoeia 
TnurmuT, The connection between a multitude and 
sound, and the extremely natural metaphor of waves to 
describe the roar of a crowd (unda salutantum, Virg. ; 
turha fluctuantis populi, Aul. Grell. ; psvfia (fyoorcov, 
^sch.), show lis how probable such a derivation is. 
Tempting as it is to derive /uuvpfjur}^ ' an ant ' from this 
root, we fear that Benfey's attempt to do so is scien- 
tifically untenable.^ But if even a nwmeral can be 
so easily and directly traced to an imitative sound, 
there is little reason to doubt the wide applicability of 
this principle of word-formation. 

So that by taking the very first and simplest illus- 
trations that came to hand, we have shown that imita- 
tive roots are not sterile ; that, on the contrary, almost 
every one of them produces so numerous and diverse an 
offspring as to show the possibility of expressing by 
their means every possible conception that Language is 
capable of expressing at all. And, with all these proofs 
before us, we say with SteinthaP that it is inconceivable 
to us that any one should be hardy enough to deny that 
Onomatopoeia was the primeval tendency of language 
which has furnished us with all elementary words. 
Those who do so must abandon all attempts to see any 
connection between sound and meaning, except such as 

* Benfey did so on the very insufficient ground that the v in fxvpo} 
is long, and in murmuro short. Wurz el-lexicon, i. l6. See the ad- 
mirable pamphlet Sur V Origine des Noms de Nombre, by Louis Benloew, 
Giessen, 1861. 

2 The Sanskrit vamri, uamraka, the Latin formica, and the form 
fivpfia^ preserved in Hesychius, seem to render it possible that the 
root is vam = vomere, from the formic acid which the insect throws 
from its mouth. 

^ Gram. Log. und Psychol, p. 309. 

M 2 



164 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xiv. 

was due to the most absolute and unmeaning chance. 
Without the aid of imitation the earliest communica- 
tions of mankind must have been a meaningless jabber 
of arbitrary sounds, and such, from the very nature of 
the case, they must always have remained. 



165 



CHAPTEE XV. 

DIGNITY OF ONOMATOPOEIA. 

'^OvofjLaTOTToua, id est, fictio nominis, Grseeis inter maximas habita 
virtutes, nobis vix permittitur. Et sunt plurima ita posita ah Us, qui 
sermonem 'primi fecerunt, aptantes affectibus vocem.' 

QuiNCTiL. Instt. Or. viii. 6. 

CoNDiLLAC complained that to suppose man to have 
learnt his language from imitation would be to place 
him below the animals, and this was why he favoured 
the Interjectional origin rather than the Onomatopoetic. 
"We have seen already that both points of origin are 
requisite, and that neither can be separated from the 
other; but independently of this, Condillac's objec- 
tion, which is perfectly worthless as an argument, was 
founded on the common misconception of supposing 
that animal cries offered the only materials for imita- 
tion. On the contrary every sound of nature con- 
tributed its element to human speech, — the rustling 
and whispering of her forest leaves, the howling of 
her storms, the booming of her seas, the rush of her 
cataracts, the rippling sequacious murmur of her rivu- 
lets. That there must be an intimate connection 
between nature and language is shown by the manner 
in which the sound of a language is often a reflex of the 
geographical conditions by which the people who speak 
it are surrounded — by the strident hirrient roughness of 



166 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xv. 

Northern tongues (for instance) compared with the soft ^ 
musical vowelled undersong of the sunny South. It was 
suggested by Nodier that the presence or absence of the 
more remarkable and difficult articulations of language 
is always explicable by the existence or non-existence of 
certain animals in the countries where they are spoken, 
and that the tiger and the rattlesnake have suggested 
the click of the Hottentot and the rough sibilant of 
the North American Indian. This may be true or not ; 
but, as we have shown,^ onomatopoeia rests on a far 
wider basis than this, and reproduces ideally and articu- 
lately that ringing shiver caused by the oscillation of 
material particles which results from every possible 
impact. Yet if it were probable that man had been 
taught to speak by listening to the animals alone, it 
would be absurd to reject such a conclusion solely in 
consequence of that a 'priori assumption of human exal- 
tation which has stood so often in the path of science, 
and which has so often prevented men from reaching 
the Gate of Honour by making them refuse to pass 
under the Gate of Humility. 

4. It has however been urged, with more of plausi- 
bility, that the most obvious and intentional onomato- 
poeias are generally modern and often undignified, and 
that onomatopoeia could never therefore have been a 
leading principle of Language. 

We reply briefly that pure imitations are the only 
words now open for us to invent, and therefore that 
many such words are apparently modern. Whether 
they are, in any case, really so may be doubtful when, to 

' Greek, removed to the enervating climate of Asia Minor, becomes 
the soft Ionian. 

^ Origin of Lang. 76. 



CH. XV. DIGNITY OF Ol^OMATOPCEIA. 167 

give but one instance, we learn that the Laplanders 
have the onomatopoeia 'to slam'' in the very same sense 
as ourselves, although * countless ages must have elapsed 
since their ancestors and ours parted from a common 
stock.' ^ Probably there are not many words which 
have thus for ages preserved their exact form in the 
mass of detritus of which modern languages are 
composed; but all we have asserted is the traceable 
existence, often even to the latest moment of a word's 
history, of the original imitative element. And the fact 
that an onomatopoeia is the only word whose invention 
is still admissible, is an additional proof of our propo- 
sition. For what is the reason of this fact? Simply 
because an onomatopoeia is the only word formed in 
obvious accordance with the earliest principle of lan- 
guage, the only one which is immediately intelligible, 
the only one which possesses an inherently graphic 
power, the only one which can add the beauty of novelty 
and delighted surprise to the effects produced by exist- 
ing language, the only one which has any chance of a 
permanent currency. The fact, then, that new words 
are mostly imitative is so far from furnishing an argu- 
ment against us that it tells distinctly in our favour. 
It tends to prove that the only words which can be 
invented on any reasonable principle are onomatopoeias; 
and therefore points back to onomatopoeia as the neces- 
sary principle of all language at its commencement. 

In the present stereotyped condition of language, in 
which it has been so largely modified and its spontaneous 
development checked in so many ways by the influence 
of writing and literature, we can hardly be astonished 

* Wedgwood, i. p. iv. 



168 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xv. 

to find that a direct sound-imitation, particularly if 
it be rude and inartistic, is probably too special and 
limited in significance to give birth to a family of words. 
Yet the fact that the greatest and most popular poets ^ 
of every age and nation, from Homer to Tennyson, from 
Ennius to Grothe, from Archilochus to Burger and 
Lamartine, have employed these Echoes of Nature freely, 
and that the passages in which they have done so have 
attracted constant attention, is at least sufficient, as I 
have previously shown,^ to redeem these words from the 
position of 'illegitimate pretenders to the dignity of 
language.' The timid rhetoricians of the Silver Age, and 
the desiccated pedantic grammarians of a later period, 
might not venture to use such a privilege,^ but they 
could at least point with admiration to the Xi'y^s ^los, 
and the crtfe 8' ocj^OaXfios, and the 

KapKaipe Se yaia TroSeaa-iv 
opvvjxevoiv &iJ.v5is 

of Homer ; they could catch the hurtling of battle in 

(rKsirTer' oiffTuv re pol^ov koX Zovirov olkovtuv, 

and a murmur of the * hollower-bellowing ocean ' in 

e| d/caAappetrao ^aBvppoov ClK^avoio, 



* ol xapiecrTCTOt TroirjTcSv re /col (Tvyypacpeav ra fihv avroi re 
KaracTK^vaQovffiv ovofxara, (TVfXTrKiKovres iTriTrjSeiws aXAr)\0LS ra ypajxjxara, 
KoX ras (TvXXafias 5e oj/cetws, ols av fiovKcavrai Ttapacrrrjcrai TraSeCi, voikiXcjs 
(piKorexvoZffi. Dion. Hal. Be Comp. Verb. p. 94. Steinthal, Gesch. d. 
Sprachwissensch. p. 340. 

2 Origin of Lang. pp. 91-96. 

* Quinctilian says, ' Minivie nobis concessa est dvofxaroTroita,' and he 
goes on to say that, were it not for the authority of the ancients, they 
could hardly even venture to use such words as hinnire and balare! 
{Instt. i. 5, 72.) He adds in another place that it was more permissible 
to the Greeks; and in two places he admits that it was a primitive 
principle of language. ' Non alia libertate, quam qua illi primi homines 



CH. XV. DIGNITY OF ONOMATOP(EIA. 169 

Further study and the comparison of more languages 
'would have shown them that there is no poet worthy of 
the name who does not abound in imitative expres- 
sions ; that these are in fact the most appropriate, the 
most simple, the most passionate, the most picturesque; 
and that ' poetry reproduces the original process of the 
mind in which language originates. The coinage of 
words is the primitive poem of humanity, and the 
imagery of poetry and oratory is only possible and 
effective, because it is a continuation of that primitive 
process which is itself a reproduction of creation.' ^ 

There are whole poems, — like the Paradise Lost, — 
and whole languages— like the Hebrew — which are, one 
may boldly say, an onomatopoeia from beginning to end. 
An imitative harmony runs throughout them, and their 
very sounds bear the impress of the thoughts they 
breathe. Often this is due to the number of vigorous 
and appropriate imitations which they contain, as in 
Homer : — 

* Par q^iel art le chantre d'AcMle 
Me rend-il tant de bruits divers ? 
n fait partir la fleche agile 
Et par ses sons sifflent les airs. 
Des vents me peint-il le ravage ? 
Du vaisseau que brise leur rage 
Eclate le gemissement ; 
Et de I'onde qui se courrouce 
Centre un roclier qui la repousse 
Eetentit le mugissement.' ^ 



rebus appellationes dederunt ' (viii. 3, 30) ; and ' et sunt plurima ita 
posita ab iis, qui sermonem jprimi fecerunt, aptantes affectibus vocem ' 
(viii. 6, 31). 

* Bunsen, Outlines, ii. 135. 

2 Eacine (le fils), Ode sur VHarmonie. 



170 01^ LANGUAGE. ch. xv. 

But often it results from a certain inward inexplicable 
harmony which makes sound the coefficient of sense,^ 
and by virtue of which thoughts are often welded into 
an apparently indissoluble union with the language in 
which they are expressed. 

' On the whole subject, which cannot here be pursued, see L. Quicherat, 
Traite de Ve^-sification Frangaise, pp. 144-176. Pobel, Grundzuge einer 
Theorie des Beims. The question of Assonances, Ehymes, Alliterations 
belongs to this part of our enquiry, but may safely be passed over. It 
is cimoujs to find a powerful euphonic concord (a sort of Umlaut) running 
through the South African dialects. In Kafir, for instance, the adjective 
varies its prefix ten or twelve times, according to the prefix of the 
governing noun. Appleyard, Kaf. Gram. p. 6. 



171 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

SUPPOSED ILLUSOKINESS OF THE SEARCH FOR 
ONOMATOPCEIAS. 

* Alphana vient d'equus sans doute, 
Mais il faut admettre aussi 
Qu'en venant dela jusqu'ici 
II a bien change sur la route I ' 

The last objection we have found urged against the 
Onomatopoetic theory is — 

5. The difficulty and illusoriness of the search. 

If the search were * lawless,' if it were * detrimental 
to all scientific etymology/ the objection that it was 
also one in which we are peculiarly liable to be misled 
by the imagination might hold. But be it remembered 
that up to a certain point, and that point very far back 
in the history of the word, the search of the Sanskritist, 
and the search of those who hold the Imitative theory, 
would be identical. Without pledging ourselves to 
the invariable applicability of Grrimm's law, we should 
guide our enquiry by certain recognised rules of phonetic 
change, except in cases where there was good reason to 
admit that such rules are superseded by other more 
general and more potent influences. The only differ- 
ence would be that we should carry our research rather 
farther back, and should hold in our hand a clue both 
simple and natural, which we believe to be sufficient to 



172 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xvi. 

suggest many discoveries and explain many anomalies. 
Considering the extreme uncertainty of many etymologies 
confidently proposed by Sanskrit scholars, and the great 
improbability of the conclusions to which they often 
point, the importance of some broad fundamental prin- 
ciple to guide the researches of etymology can hardly 
be overrated. 

That there is an uncritical as well as a critical 
school of Etymology we do not of course deny ; but we 
do deny that an acceptance of the Imitative theory at 
once stamps a man as belonging to the uncritical 
school. There is nothing whatever in the theory which 
supersedes the necessity of ' acting in subordination to 
the well-discovered principles and rules of phonology, 
so as not to swerve a foot's breadth from them unless 
plain actual exceptions shall justify it.' Etymologists 
of every school ought cordially to reecho the wise and 
weighty words of Diez:^ — 'How little often can ety- 
mology accomplish ! how doubtful are its results ! The 
highest point reached by the etymologist is the con- 
sciousness of having acted scientifically. For the 
attainment of absolute certainty he has no security. 
Some insignificant new thing may hurl down from him 
under his feet a result previously gained with great 
labour. This will happen to him in every extended 
investigation ; it is included among the daily experiences 
of the etymologist, from which even the most keen-eyed 
are not free. Therefore modesty ! even when every 
fact seems to support our theories.' For a long time to 
come a large number of proposed derivations can only 
be regarded as plausible and tentative. 

* I quote the translation from D wight's Mod. Philology, i. 238. 



CH. XVI. ONOMATOPOEIA NOT ILLUSORY. 173 

*I cannot help observing,' says Professor Pott in a 
private letter, which I am sure that he will forgive me 
for quoting, ^that the giving chase to onomatopoetical 
terms seems to me to be somewhat unfruitful, because of 
the numerous illusions to which such a study would be 
necessarily exposed.' Now caution is of course neces- 
sary; but we do not think that, in modern times at 
any rate, the charge of mere reckless guessing and 
fancying can be brought with more justice against 
philologists of this school than against those of any 
other school which may choose to monopolise the title 
of 'Scientific' After the philological labours of men 
like Bopp, and Grrimm, and Pott, and Diez, and Cur- 
tius, and Max Miiller, and of English scholars like 
Professor Key, the main laws of Etymology are too 
generally understood to render tolerable any defiance of 
them. Doubtless the ancient grammarians ^ furnish us 
with many amusing vagaries, and it would not be diffi- 
cult to select scores of them from the ' Etymologicum 
Magnum;' but this was but natural, in days before 
Etymology existed, or could have existed, as a Science, 
nor is it in the least chargeable on their vague recogni- 
tion of the onomatopoetic principle, but resulted from 
their unavoidable ignorance of every language except 
their own. This is quite enough to account for what 
De Quincey ^ calls, * the unspeakable spirit of absurdity 
which came over both Grreeks and Komans the moment 
they meddled with etymology.' But since philology has 
been a Science, can it be proved that onomatopoeia has 
been a greater source of error than any other principle ? 
Cannot etjmaological extravagance be illustrated at 

* See Lerseh, Sprachphil. d. Alien, iii. 82. 
2 Works, viii. p. viii, (Black's ed.) 



174 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xvt. 

least as abundantly from the pages of Bopp and other 
eminent Sanskritists as from any who hold the views 
here supported? If a philologist like Benfey^ could 
derive vaKivSos from v=^to bring forth,' and avOos *a 
blossom,' and if a scholar so eminent as the late 
Dr. Donaldson could connect dulcis ' sweet' with hokL')(os 
'long,' because fruit lengthens as it ripens, — surely the 
scientific etymologists ought to see how liable they are 
to error, and ought to take care how they throw a slur 
upon the labours of those who after all only carry their 
views one step farther back. If I select no more 
instances to enforce the obvious advice that ' those who 
live in glass houses should not throw stones,' it is be- 
cause such a task, when one is engaged in trying to 
establish a reasonable theory, and not in exposing the 
errors of others, is both ungracious and irksome. 

But fortunately Professor Miiller offers us some illus- 
trations of his assertion that if we look for the interjec- 
tional or imitative element in roots we become lawless 
and fanciful. Let us examine these, and see if there be 
any occasion to admit that they are erroneous and 
illusory. We do not think there is. 

In both of his volumes (i. 354, ii. 92) he selects the 
etymologies proposed for the words foul, filth, fiend, &c. 
These words Mr. Wedgwood [Etymological Dictionary, 
i. p. xiii.) had derived, through various stages, from an 

^ See Benfey, Wurzel-lex. i. 413. His error is exploded by Donaldson, 
Cratylus, p. 653. His derivation of dulcis I only learn by the report of 
a listener to one of his Cambridge lectures. Obviously dulcis is onomato- 
poetic in origin, no less than yXvKvs with which it is connected ; both 
belong to the universal root IJc, an imitation of licking the lips, &c. 
Origin of Lang. p. 84. For a very amusing exposition of several 
dogmatic vagaries in which learned philologists have indulged, see 
Professor Hewitt Key's pamphlet Quceritur, &c. 



CH. XVI. ONOMATOPGEIA NOT ILLUSOEY. 175 

ultimately interjectional root, the instinctive expression 
of disgust, fob ! fie ! faugh ! This, argues Professor 
Miiller in both his volumes, is impossible, and to accept 
it would be to undo the patient labour of years, and 
to throw back etymology into a condition of chaotic 
anarchy. * For fiend is the present participle of the 
Grothic fijan to hate ; and as a Grothic aspirate always 
corresponds to a tenuis in Sanskrit, the same root in 
Sanskrit would at once lose its expressive power. It 
exists in fact in Sanskrit as 'piy to hate, to destroy.' 
He adds in his Second Series of Lectures, ' Besides 
'piy to hate, there is another root in Sanskrit, 'puy to 
decay. From it we have the Latin ^us, puteo, pu- 
tridus ; Grreek pyon and pytho ; Lithuanian pulei 
matter; and in strict accordance with Grimm's law, 
Grothic fuls, English fouU 

Now surely the answer to these reiterated objections 
is absolute and triumphant. * He does not observe,' says 
Mr. Wedgwood, * that the sound of breathing, and the 
interjection of disgust, are represented as often by the 
combination pu as by /it.' This single short sentence 
is sufficient not only to crumble to the dust Professor 
Miiller's objection, but even to turn all his examples into 
so many additional illustrations of the interjectional 
element of language, from which it is quite clear that 
piy to hate, and puy to decay are as much derived 
as are the Teutonic forms of similar words beginning 
with / or ff. For, in point of fact, p and / are fre- 
quently united in the same instinctive vocal-gesture of 
disgust, especially when it assumes its strongest form 
as in the Latin word pfui I That this is really the 
primitive element of these words we may conjecture as 



176 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xvi. 

securely as that there was once a form KfisXas ^ when 
we compare the two forms /xsXas and KsXacvos. But 
what force is there then in this instance, — selected and 
repeated by Professor Miiller himself, and therefore 
one to which he evidently attaches great importance ? 
In what way does it tend to refute the Interjectional 
theory ? So far from overthrowing that theory, it tends 
directly to its support ! 

Another instance which he gives of the supposed 
illusoriness of onomatopoeia is the word ^squirrel ' (i. 350). 
But although every one who has ever heard squirrels 
rustling amid the whispering leaves of a grove, must 
feel a certain harmonious appropriateness in the sound, 
yet who has ever dreamed of urging it as an instance 
of original imitation ? Certainly the ^ some people ' 
to whom he refers for the opinion must have been tiros 
of the most ignorant description, seeing that sciurus 
the shadow-tail is a word known to all schoolboys, 
even if they are not aware that our English word,* like 
so many animal names in the Eomance languages, 
comes from the diminutive sciuriolus (as abeille from 
apicula, grenouille from ranuncula, &c.). That 
squirrel might, however, have been very naturally ex- 
pressed by an imitative sound is clear from the Persian 
warwarah, the Latin viverra, the modern Grreek 

A third instance is hatze, cat. In my ' Origin of 
Language ' I quoted it from Mr; Wedgwood as a 
probable onomatopoeia, adding, ' It must however be 

' See Buttmann, Lexil. s. v. K^Xaivos. The form K/teAe^pov for fieXa- 
Opov in the Etym. Magn. is an additional proof. Similarly the existence 
of (Tvv and cum would at once lead us to infer a form |uv even if it were 
not found. 



CH. XVI. ONOMATOPOEIA J^OT ILLUSOET. 177 

admitted that there is no sibilant in kater.' This fact 
Mr. Miiller adduces (i. 351) to explode the notion 
of its onomatopoeian origin, and says that though the 
Sanskrit mdrjdra sounds like purring, it really means 
the animal that cleans itself. Of ' cat ' I have already 
spoken, and will only add that if katze and mdrjdra be 
not of imitative origin yet they are words which an 
imperious instinct — an instinct of which the workings 
are powerfully apparent in language — has at any rate 
forced into an imitative form ; and if this unconscious 
instinct can work so powerfully in finished languages, 
we are the more necessitated to believe in its primary 
influence. 

The only other case urged to show ' how apt we are 
to deceive ourselves when we once adopt this system 
of onomatopoeia ' is the word thunder, which likewise 
figures in both series of the Lectures on Language 
(i. 350, ii. 93). Now, although no philologist would 
select the particular words tonitru, donner, tonnerre, to 
illustrate the system of onomatopoeia, because of their 
frequently asserted origin from the root tan, to stretch, 
— for which reason I formally excluded the word both 
on a previous page, and in a previous^ work, — yet 
it is not a word on which we need object to accept the 
challenge of an opponent; and that for the two fol- 
lowing reasons : 

(1) It is known, and admitted, that if a list of names 
for the thunder ^ be collected from languages in every 
region of the globe, the imitative principle is, in the 
immensely preponderant number of instances, distinctly 

* Origin of Lang. p. 82. 

2 See the treatises of Grrimm and Pott previously referred to, and 
add Adelung, Mithridat i. xiv. ; Kenan, Be V Orig. du Lang. p. 139. 

N 



178 



ON LANGUAGE. 



perceptible. This therefore proves that the most 
natural and simple mode of nomenclature for the phe- 
nomenon would be that of onomatopoeia ; and this again 
defends ns from the charge of fancifulness when we 
assert that the form assumed by the word thunder 
(whatever its origin) is the result of the onomatopoetic 
instinct, — which is no other than an imperious sense of 
the necessity that in certain instances there should be a 
perceptible analogy between sound and sense. 

But (2), even if we waive all discussion of the certainty 
of the etymology of tonitru from tan, — what is tan 
itself? Mr. Wedgwood would class it with such words 
as to din, to dun, and other words expressive of con- 
tinuous sound. Professor Miiller replies that there are 
certain laws which change tan into thccn, and quite a 
different root dhvan into dun, and that these two roots 
preserve their individuality, and are and have been 
separate from the commencement. He says, indeed, 
'There may be, for all we know, some distant relation- 
ship between the two roots tam- and dhvan, and that 
relationship may have its origin in onomatoposia.'' 
We believe that the history and meaning of many Avords 
derived from these two roots show this to be the case, 
and if so our point is proved. At present, however, we 
are only concerned with the root tan to stretch. 

' From ^ this root we have in Greek tonos, our tone, 
tone being produced by the stretching and vibrating of 
cords.' It expresses ' that tension of the air which gives 
rise to sound.' Now we ask is it even conceivable that 
those fathers of our race who framed the Aryan lan- 
guage should have been so perversely eccentric, as, out of 

1 Lectures, i. 356, ii. 92. 



CH. XVI. ONOMATOPCEIA ]S"OT ILLUSORY. 179 

the thousand^ possiloje relations which might have 
been selected as a characteristic, to choose the notion 
of stretching as a natural, obvious, or intelligible one, 
wherewith to express the thunder? Supposing, as we must 
do, that external objects and simple phenomena must 
have been among the earliest things to receive names, 
is it conceivable that a word for stretching should have 
been chosen as peculiarly applicable to the most terrible 
phenomenon of storms ? Is it conceivable that at a 
period so very early in human history they should have 
noticed that ' tension of the air which gives rise to 
sound,' (?) and that too when they must have had at 
hand a host of roots expressive of sound, any one of 
which would have suited better the object to be named ? 
And if on the other hand they only selected the root tan 
because it was a root which they already possessed, and 
because it was well adapted to express the sound pro- 
duced by the vibration of cords, why then, tan being 
an onomatopoeia (cf. the very obvious cognate words 
tivang, rTJvsXXa, &c., words which spontaneously present 
themselves as imitative of the sound produced by tre- 
mulous strings), tonitru, tonnerre, &c., are not only 
imitatively moulded, but are after all of an origin 
demonstrably onomatopoeian even accepting all the 
premisses of our opponents. How then do they show 
the illusory nature of our search ? 

But here surely the unsuitableness of the particu- 
lar onomatopoeia ought at once to convince our com- 
mon sense that our history of the word is incorrect. 
Could any human being have ever dreamed of per- 

* Origin of Lang. 1. e. 



180 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xvi. 

•ceiving any analogy between thi^nder and harpstrings ? 
We may indeed imagine how 

Wind that grand old harper smote 
His thxmder-harp of pines ; 

and we can understand sucli a metaptor as 

Now strike the golden lyre again, 

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain ! 

Ereak his bands of sleep asunder 

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. 

We can, I say, understand this because ^thunder' 
becomes very rapidly, as language advances, a word for 
any loud noise, and indeed a mere epithet or intensive 
prefix as when w^ hear in low comedies of a person 
being a ^ thundering brick ! ' But all these expressions 
belong to the mechanical or artificial stage of language, 
and it is, we repeat, inconceivable that the reason why 
the Sanskrit tanyu, thunder, should have been derived 
from tan to stretch, was because some old Aryan on 
hearing thunder was reminded of the resonance of 
tense strings. If indeed he were reminded of any in- 
strument at all, it would have been a wind instrument, 
as Homer was when he wrote 

afx^l S' iaaXTTLy^ev fi^yas ovpav6s. 
The vast heaven trumpeted around ; 

and as the Hebrews were when they confused the 
images of Sinaitic thunder with those of trumpets and 
archangelic voices (Ex. xix. 16, xx. 18, cf. 1 Thess. Iv. 
16, Eev. i. 10, &c.). But we may, I think, assume it 
as a certainty that ' thunder ' was a phenomenon which 
received its name long before any musical instrument, 
either wind or string, was known. 



CH. XVI. OXOMATOP(EIA NOT ILLUSORY. 181 

The only way out of these difficulties and contradic- 
tions appears to be as follows. If it be accepted as 
certain that tonitru, &c., come ultimately from tan, 
and that the primitive conception of the root tan was 
that of 'stretching,' we must assume that some word 
like rovos or tone, for the voice, was derived from or 
connected with it, not because the ancient Aryans knew 
anything about the cliordce vocaleSf but from the more 
general notion of stretching the throat in speaking and 
singing. The steps in the word's history will then be 
as follows: 1. Tan is an onomatopoeia to express the 
sound made when a tightened string is twanged, and 

In its clear vibration sings 
Like to the swallow's voice.* 

2. This onomatopoeia was transferred to the human 
voice, because the throat, during loud utterance, is 
obviously in a tense state. 3. The word ^ voice' was 
naturally transferred to thunder, just as it was in 
Hebrew where the word b')p Kohl means both voice 
and thunder — the voice of the Lord (Ps. xxix., Ex. ix. 
23, &c.) How natural is this analogy may be easily 
shown. In the book of Job we read of ' the thunder of 
the captains.' In the narrative of the Evangelists, when 
a voice came to our Lord from heaven, ^The people 
that stood by and heard it said that it thundered ; others 
said. An angel spake to himi.'' ^ In modern literature the 
metaphor of thunder as applied to eloquence or poetry 
is one alike of the commonest and the most natural. 

We are quite ready and indeed are very glad to admit, 
if need be, that ^the very same root tan, to stretch, 

* 7] y vTrh KaXh]/ &eiffe ;xeAt5ovi et/ceATj avd7}v. Horn. Od. xxi. 
2 John xii. 29. 



182 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xvi. 

yields some derivatives which are anything but rough 
and noisy/ such as tender, thin, &c., and we do not see 
at all that the relationship of these words would be hard 
to establish ' if the original conception of thunder ' (i. e. 
of course the word thunder) 'had been its rumbling 
noise.' ' Thunder,^ as we have seen, unlike the words 
for the same thing in almost every other language, may 
be an onomatopoeia not at first hand but at second hand, 
by one of those very processes of transference, analogy, 
and metaphor which we shall hope to illustrate in the 
next chapter; and, given the imitative basis, the fact 
that its linguistic superstructure should contain words 
so dissimilar in meaning from it as ^ thin ' and ' tender ' 
is precisely what we should have expected, and precisely 
the fact which we shall subsequently urge as an addi- 
tional proof that, given your seedlings of language in 
the form of a few imitative sounds, these sounds, when 
quickened by the intellect, possess a germinal force 
sufficient to make them bourgeon into the noblest tree 
which ever 'bore aloft on its immortal boughs the 
language and the literature of a mighty nation.' 



183 



CHAPTER XVII. 

REFLEX IMITATIYE TENDENCY OF LANGUAGE. 

* Se consideriamo il ragguardeTol numero di onomatopee sparsi in ogni 
lingua, e sopra tutto in quello che serbano ancora intatte le impronte 
della primitiva loro formazione, appare manifesta la naturale tendenza 
dell' uomo a rappresentare gli oggetti per mezzo delle loro proprieta 
piu distinte.' — Biondelu, Studii Linguistici, p. 114. 

If it be meant as a reproach to the assertors of the 
imitative origin of language that their etymologies 
are ' fanciful,' we have replied already that they are not 
one whit more so than those of the etymologists who 
arrogate to themselves the title of ' scientific' But, in 
point of fact, the name 'fanciful' carries with it no 
stigma at all, as we hope to prove further in the next 
chapter. ' The very nature of association in the human 
mind is essentially fanciful ; ' and if a fancy, the most 
playful and bizarre, can be shown to have preponderated 
in the growth of abstractions, it might be expected to 
play its part in the origin of roots. But we really are 
not aware exactly at what point of the enquiry the 
fancifulness is supposed to begin. For 

(i.) Professor Miiller admits freely that ' an arbitrary 
imposition of articulate sounds to signify definite ideas, 
is an assumption unsupported by any evidence' (ii. 
338); and 

(ii.) That * all roots, i. e. all the material elements of 



184 Olf LANGUAGE. ch. xvn. 

language^ are expressive of sensuous impressions, and 
sensuous impressions only.' 

Here then again ' habemus confitentem.' For, if all 
roots were sensuous, and no root arbitrary, what follows ? 
That every root must have been imposed, i. e. that every 
sound must have been chosen, for some reason. Now 
step by step we have shown that the easiest, and there- 
fore the earliest, sounds must have corresponded to the 
earliest impressions ; and there could have been no con- 
ceivable reasons for the earliest sounds except those 
which we have suggested. Are we then more ' fanciful' 
than those who accept the only possible alternatives, 
1. e. of considering that roots were 'inspired,' or of 
appealing to their supposed occulta vis ? This much is 
certain : — Either the origin of Language was that which 
we have explained, and which even our opponents admit 
to be possible; — or the problem must be practically 
abandoned as inexplicable and insoluble, while at the 
same time it is treated of in a number of self-contra- 
dicting formulas. 

The word * sugar ^ as well as squirrel, is adduced as 
an instance of the deceptiveness of fancy. * Who does 
not imagine that he hears something sweet in the French 
Sucre, Sucre? Yet sugar came from India, and it is 
there called sarkhara, which is anything but sweet- 
sounding.' True; but this remark has no connection 
whatever with the subject under our discussion. We 
do not even fancy that the word ' sugar ' has any par- 
ticular sweetness in its sound. The theory of an 
imitative origin of language is wholly unconnected 
with the mysticism of the Analogists, whose views we 
shall discuss hereafter, and who, when the Science of 
Language was unknown, and few men could speak any 



CH. XVII. EEPLEX ONOMATOPCEIAS. 185 

but their mother-tongue, may be excused for having 
held the erroneous notion of an inevitable, inherent, 
and intrinsic harmony between word and thing. The 
connection between sound and sense, as we have said 
already, was not arbitrary ; but neither was it miracu- 
lous. It must always have arisen from some determinate 
reason \ and the only conceivable reason that can be 
suggested is the Imitative and Interjectional origin of 
roots. We did not know that any one had ever 
adduced ' sugar ' as an onomatopoeia, though certainly 
it would be a natural error to connect it with the imi- 
tative roots sugere, suck, &c. 

Let us consider some similar cases. St. Augustine,^ 
after stating the Stoic belief in the onomatopoetic theory, 
continues, that, in the case of things without life, a 
certain analogy was allowed to come into play, so that 
the softness or harshness of words was allowed to carry 
with it an impression of the softness or harshness of 
things. ' The very words " lenis " and " asper,'^ ' he says, 
' have a leniency and asperity in their sound. Voluptas 
pleasure is a soft, crux cross is a harsh word. So that 
words suggest their own meaning. 3Iel " honey " is as 
sweet to the ear as honey is to the taste ; acre " sour " ^ 
is bitter to both ; " lana " wool and " vepres " a bramble 
are rough to the ear, as the things they mean are to the 
touch. The Stoics considered a concord between sound 
and sense to be the very cradle of language.' 

Doubtless there is in this passage much confusion of 



* Dial. Princ. c. 6, Quoted in that great storehouse of philological 
learning, Lersch, Die Sprachphilosophie d. Alien, iii. 47. 

2 Our ' eager ' in its old sense, as ' eager milk,' the French ' aigre ; * 
also sharp. 'It is a nipping and an eager air.' Shaksp. Cf. iriKpos, 
which means both ;poinied and bitter. 



185 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xvii* 

thought. In his statement about the invention of words 
capable of reproducing a natural sound, the Bishop 
reports the Stoics correctly; but the vast portion of 
language not capable of resulting from direct and 
immediate imitation was formed, not by the very crude 
and often purely imaginary analogy to which he refers, 
but by processes of derivation and composition which 
we have partly observed already, and which we shall 
consider further in following chapters. Yet after these 
deductions have been made, there is in the passage 
which we have quoted a residuum of truth. There is 
unquestionably a certain meaning, appropriateness, and 
symbolic power in sound. ^ It is certain that, as a rule, 
and independently of all confusion between a word and 
the inevitable associations which it summons up, things 
beautiful, soft, and pleasing, are generally represented 
by soft and pleasing words,^ while things which are 
mean and repulsive receive mean and repulsive titles. 
This, however, is often the result of long-continued 
association modifying the existing forms of language. 
It is only another exhibition of that instinct which 
demands in almost every language the observance of 
certain euphonic concords, and which fills with subtle 
specimens of paronomasia and alliteration every great 
work of poetry from the Psalms of David and the 
precepts of Meng Tseu down to the last volume of 
Tennyson's poems. The sense of hearing works in 
harmony with the other senses, and assimilates itself to 
the conditions and emotions of the mind to which it 
conveys its impressions ; it demands, for instance, that 

* Pott, Etym. Forsch. ii. 261. He gives many instances. 
2 See more on this subject with various instances in Origin of Lang. 
pp. 67-71. 



CH. XVII. KEFLEX ONOMATOP(EIAS. 187 

pleasurable sensations should be described in pleasurable 
sounds, just as it demands that the cadences of poetry 
should be soft and smooth when they glide along the 
waves of beauty and happiness, but grating and rough 
when they deal with objects of wrath and terror. The 
Cyclopes of Virgil toil at the anvil, — 

lUi inter sese multa vi brachia tollunt,* 

and his giants heap the hills, one on the crest of the 
other — 

Ter sunt conati inaponere Pelio Ossam, 

in very different strains from those in which Camilla 
flies over the plain, or in which Ennius ^ makes his 
rapid cavalry rattle to the fight — 

It eques, et plausu cava concutit ungula terram„ 

And in Milton, 

On a sudden open fly 
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound' 
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate 
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook 
Of Erebus,2 

in far different sounds from those in which 

Heaven open'd wide 
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound, 
On golden hinges moving.^ 

There is then a sort of reflex action going on, — there 
is a circular motion in language, by which words start 
from an imitation, and then losing in the course of ages 

* Ennius, Ann. xvii. ap. Macrob. Sat. vi. 1. 

2 Par. Lost, ii. 80. 

3 Ibid. vii. 204. 



188 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xvii. 

their imitative force are remoulded on the old natural 
principle by a certain imperious demand for an open 
congruity between sound and sense whenever it is at all 
possible or permissible. We have already seen this 
principle at work in the words katze and thunder \ and 
to these we may add the Eomance words for nightingale, 
Italian rossignuolo, Spanish ruysenor, French rossignol, 
which are merely modifications of lusciniola, a dimi- 
nutive from luscus, meaning the bird that 

Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid 
Tunes her nocturnal note, 

and which yet are evidently meant to snatch an echo of 
onomatopoetic music. One might select many such 
instances, but every one can find them with ease. Who 
would not fancy that he heard something of the kanonen- 
gehrull in the word cannon ? Yet it merely comes from 
canna, a reed. Clarion^ for all its sonorous fulness, is 
from clarus, and means the clearly -sounding instru- 
ment; minstrel, liquid and musical, Is nothing but a 
corruption of the vulgar ministerialis ; and lute, with 
all its vowel-sweetness, is nothing but the Arabic article 
el kneaded up into the substantive ud, as in alchemy 
or algebra, or, to take an instance from our own lan- 
guage, as the n of our indefinite article gets tacked on 
to eft in the word newt Thus it is that language 
reverts to its primary instincts. Its earliest sounds were 
imitative, and after long deviations from their primitive 
source, after being subjected to a thousand varying 
influences, they yet tend to become imitative again. 
Carried far away from its primitive source, subjected to 
numberless modifications, its words still, if I may be 
forgiven the metaphor, are like those 



CH. XVII. KEFLEX ONOMATOPOEIAS. 189 

Sinuoiis shells of pearly hue 
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed 
In the sun's palace-porch, where when unyoked 
His chariot- wheel stands midway in the wave : 
Shake one and it awakens ; then apply 
Its polished lips to your attentive ear, 
And it rem.emhers its august abodes, 
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. ^ 



> Landor. By a curious coincidence the same lines have been quoted 
to illustrate the sapae point by the ' Times ' since these pages were 
written. 



190 ON LANGUAGE. 



CHAPTEK XVIII. 

THE PAKT PLAYED BY THE IMAGINATION IN THE 
INVENTION OF LANGUAGE* 

' What surmounts the reach 
Of human sense, I shall delineate so, 
By likeninoj spiritual to corporal forms, 
As may express them best.' Milton, Par. Lost, v. 37. 

In one of those pregnant concessions to the importance 
of the Imitative principle which make us sometimes 
hope that our eminent opponent is more than half con- 
vinced by the arguments adduced in its favour, after 
allowing that there is ' a large stock ' of onomatopoeias 
in every language, he says, ^ And who would deny that 
some words originally expressive of sound only, might be 
transferred to other things which have some analogy 
with sound ?' 

'But,' he continues (ii. 89), 'how are all things 
which do not appeal to the sense of hearing — how are 
the ideas of going, moving, standing, sinking, tasting, 
thinking, to be expressed ? ' 

This is the last arrow, and meant apparently to be 
the most effective, which is shot Parthian-like into our 
forces. The point of it has already been turned aside 
by the considerations previously adduced. But in order 
to leave no argument uncoDsidered, I hope throughout 
this chapter to bring an abundance of instances which 



CH. XVIII. IMAGINATION. 191 

will be adequate to remove the suggested difficulty, or 
at any rate to show that it is neither fatal nor final. 

Let us return for a moment to first principles. 

I have said repeatedly that no school of etymologists 
pretends to explain the derivation of all words. The 
Imitative school indeed is the only one which offers any 
explanation of the ultimate origin of even a large 
number of words. We are not therefore in a tvorse 
position than any others, although we are convinced 
that the Science of Philology can go farther and attempt 
more than has yet been accomplished. Consequently it 
is no refutation of our principles to adduce any special 
group of words which we are unable to explain, any 
more than it would be a refutation of the arguments of 
Bopp, or Grrimm, or Pott, to perform the easy task of 
assembling long lists of words in the Aryan languages of 
which they could give, and could pretend to give, no 
account whatever. Nevertheless, as we shall see, the 
linguistic processes which we shall illustrate in the next 
chapter are sufficient to account for the possible expres- 
sion oiany conceptions whatever; and with this we might 
perhaps rest content. Given the segment of a circle 
however small, and the whole circle can immediately be 
reproduced ; given a distinct and decisive clue to the 
processes of language, and no serious difficulty remains 
in effecting its complete reconstruction. Of the group of 
words and conceptions which Professor Miiller proposes 
as incapable of explanation on our principles, we shall 
have something to say before we enter on the more 
general enquiry. The riddle which he proposes is after 
all a riddle which is easily solved by the same clues 
which enable us to understand how modifications of 
the voice could effect the far more difficult result of 



192 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xviii. 

expressing or describing the images whicli fall on the 
retina of the eye. Meanwhile, as an illustration is 
often more clear and convincing than many arguments, 
let me once more recur to the progress of writing to 
illustrate my position, — which it does in a very remark- 
able manner. I have already adduced the Hebrew 
alphabet to show the analogy between the imitative 
origin of wTiting and of speech ; I now adduce the 
Chinese ideography to illustrate how elemental roots 
were extended into finished and all-expressive lan- 
guage. 

The Chinese writing is ideographic, i. e. it has no 
alphabetic letters, but signs each of which stands for a 
conception. The most ancient Chinese characters (like 
our astronomical and chemical symbols) were rude pic- 
tures of material objects, just as we belief e the earliest 
words to have been rude imitations of sounds chosen as 
the most obvious and self-explaining characteristics of 
such objects as admitted of such representations. These 
characters were about 200 in number, and are called 
Siang-hing or Images, as— 

o > ^ X ^ I 

Sun. Moon. Mountain. Tree. Dog. Fish. 

We see that the picture was conventional or ideal rather 
than an actual copy. For instance, in the character for 
fish we see the scales and the tail conventionalised, or 
represented according to an accepted symbolism, as is 
the case with the roots and boughs of the tree ; and as 
again, in language, mere imitations are ideally and 
articulately modified. 



CH. XVIII. IM AGNATION. 193 

But soon arose the need for representing more com- 
plicated objects ; and, for these, neiu signs were not 
invented, but the old ones were combined by the most 
ingenious combinations and the liveliest metaphors, just 
as imitative roots were transferred, agglutinated, com- 
pounded, or inflected, to express intellectual operations, 
and various conditions incapable of being externally 
perceived. Thus, for instance, to signify light we have 
the sun and moon ; for hermit we have a man over a 
mountain ; for singing, a mouth and a bird ; for wife, 
a woman, a hand, and a broom ; for hearing, an ear 
placed at a door ; for tears, an eye and water, &c., as 
follows :— 




^ K^ 



Light. Hermit. Song. Wife. Listening. Tears. 

To express abstract ideas, or acts of the understanding, 
use is made of analogies and metaphors suggested by 
the simple characters ; for instance, a heart represents 
the soul ; a house stands for man ; a broom for woman ; 
a hand for artisan ; three men, one behind the other, 
means ^to follow,' &c. The notions^ of roughness, 
rotundity, motion, rest, were represented by a moun- 
tain, the sky, a river, the earth; the sun, moon, and 

^ So too with objects which would have been too diiBcult to represent 
in this manner, the mixed characters hing-cMng are used, which are 

half representative and half syllabic. Thus the sign \Tj , ' place ' {li 

in Chinese), joined to a fish, means the fish 11 or carp ; and the word 
jpe, white, is only pronounced in the character composed of a tree, 



U 



pS, which means cypress. 




194 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xviii. 

stars stood for smoothness, splendour, anything artfully 
wrought or delicately worked; extension, groiuth, in- 
crease, were figured by clouds, the firmament, and vege- 
tables; motion, agility, sloivness, idleness, and diligence, 
by various insects, birds, fish, and quadrupeds. ' In this 
manner passions and sentiments were traced by the 
pencil, and ideas not subject to any sense were exhibited 
to the sight, until by degrees new combinations were 
invented, new expressions added ; the characters dwindled 
imperceptibly from their primitive shape, and the Chi- 
nese language became not only clear and forcible, but 
rich and elegant in the highest degree.' ^ These characters 
are called Jda-tsiei, or hovroived. 

No more vivid notion than this could be given of the 
exactly analogous processes of language ; but we have 
not yet done with our illustration. 

For these characters, idealised as they are, do not in 
the more modern systems of writing, retain more than a 
dim and vague resemblance to the original picture, as 
follows : — 



sun 



becomes ^ 

moon, becomes Q 

mountain, becomes Ml 

tree, becomes 7|C 

dog, becomes X 

fish, becomes 'St 



^ Sir W. Jones, Asiatic Besearches, ii. 195. He refers to the Chinese 
•writer Li Yan Ping. 



CH. xviiT. IMAGmATIO:N'. 195 

And to take one or two compound signs : — 

^A^ bird and mouth = sono', becomes P^ 



ear and door shearing, becomes 






^^C^ tree ;pe, or cypress, becomes ^pj 

Xow if all tbis were not a matter of historic certainty, 
only imagine how ' fanciful ' a person would be called 
who should assert that the cursive sign stood for the 
object! How completely, for instance, in the above- 
written characters does the docj lose his head and legs ! 
What a ghostly simulacrum is left him of his curly tail ! 
The ear at the door looks more like three flags, and 
the moon assumes the resemblance of an eccentric 
ladder. Nevertheless, that eccentric ladder sprang by 
direct filiation from a very passable crescent moon, and 
the hatchet of the first compound sign was once a very 
sweet little mouth with a Cupid's bow for the upper lip ! 
So much then for the reproach of '^ fancifulness ' in 
inquiries of this kind. For if written characters are 
liable to these Protean metamorphoses, how much 
rather should we expect them in the words spoken every 
day, and subject to all the changes likely to arise from 
their utterance millions of times by millions of mouths 
in millions of different vocal modifications ? 

But now suppose that the Siang-hing or original 
image-characters had been lost, and some ingenious 
theorist, by the aid of an intelligent observation and 
analysis of the li or modern system of writing, had 
conjectured its originally pictorial intention ; and if he 
succeeded in proving that, say a thousand out of some 

o 2 



196 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xviii. 

30,000 recognised signs had this origin, would he not 
be fairly entitled to conclude — there being in his proce- 
dure no intrinsic unlikelibood, but on the contrary an 
a priori probability — that the rest, which he was unable 
to explain, were similarly developed from rude imita- 
tions? Would the charge of uncertainty in some in- 
stances, or the charge of degrading the divine dignity 
of the invention, be a disproof of his position ? Would 
it be fair to produce a group of indecomposable signs, 
and flout him with failure if he could give no account 
of them ? Would it be philosophical to provide his 
critic with a nickname, and call his system the ' scrap- 
book ' or the ' baby-scrawl ' theory ? Well then we 
say to each of our opponents, ^ mutato nomine de te 
Fabula narratur ! ' The rule of Varro ^ is more equi- 
table, viz., that he who has given many excellent deriva- 
tions ought rather to be thanked for those than blamed for 
an occasional failure ; particularly when he admits that 
for many words no etymology whatever can be offered. 
And here we must again stop to object decidedly 
against the notion, common apparently to most philo- 
logers, that verbal roots, such as going, moving, tasting, 
&c., or as some prefer to call them, predicative roots, 
were the earliest. To us such a conception is logically 
inconceivable. The invention of a verb requires a 
greater effort of abstraction than that of a noun, for, 
obviously, we must have generalised from individual 
phenomena before we can express them verbally under 
the conditions of * motion, action, or existence.' In 

' ' Igitiir de originibus verborum qui miilta dixerit commode, potius 
boni coBsulendum, quam qui aliquid' nequivsrit reprehendendum ; prae- 
sertim quum dicat etymologice non omniuia verborum did posse causam/ 
Varro, De Ling. Lat. yji. 4, 



CH. xviir. IMAGINATION. 197 

some places, indeed. Professor Miiller ^ appears to hold the 
correct view, that at first ' roots ' stood for any and every 
part of speech, just as the monosyllabic expressions of 
children do, and just as they do to this day in that lan- 
guage of arrested development, the Chinese. This is 
the view supported with such brilliant acumen, and 
illustrated with so much philological learning, by the late 
Mr. Grarnett ^ in his Essay on the Nature and Analysis 
of the Verb. We believe with him that all language 
is reducible to roots which are either the basis of ab- 
stract nouns, or are pronouns denoting relations of place, 
which latter we believe to have arisen from interjec- 
tional elements. Now, ' a verb is not a simple, but, 
ex necessario, a complex term, and therefore no primary 
part of speech.'^ From these views we cannot accept 
it as even possible that, ^ from roots meaning to shine, 
to be bright, names were formed, for sun, moon, stars, 
the eyes of man, gold, silver, play, joy, happiness, love. 
With roots meaning to strike, it was possible to name 
an axe, the thunderbolt, a fist, a paralytic stroke, a 
striking remark, and a stroke of business.' It seems 
inconceivable that men should have needed, and, there- 
fore, should have invented, a word meaning ' to shine ' 
before they had any designation for the sun, or a verb 
meaning 'to strike' before they had the imitative 
sounds tud, tup, tuph (cf. our confessed onomatopoeias 
thud, tap, tat, rub a dub, &g.),^ which were amply 

* Lectures, ii. 86. Bunsen, Outlines, ii. 130. 

2 The Pkilol. Essays of the late Rev. Etch. Garnett, edited by liis Son, 
pp. 289-342. No more sound, or valuable, or interesting contribution 
to Philology has appeared for many years than this volume of Essays. 

3 Garnett, p. 290. 

* So obvious is this imitation as to be found also in the Semitic 
languages. Cf. Hebr. f]2D, P]ri, &c. 



198 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xviii.^ 

sufficient for a host of derivatives in every language, as 
TVTTTft), TVfjLiTavov, drub_, drum, thump, and so forth. 
We have already seen that the verb is represented by 
a combination of the noun in the history of Chinese 
ideography, and it seems to me impossible that it could 

have been otherwise in speech. In Chinese ming flJj 
' bright ' is ^ from f^ yih the sun, and Q ngyneh 
the moon ; and ^^ fivun ' to divide ' is composed of 
T7 tao a knife, and /t fdh eight. This is a con- 
ceivable process ; the other would be, in the old sense of 
the word, preposterous. Nor is it a question as to what 
is merely probable in language ; for we may regard it 
as established by the large inductive process of Mr. 
Garnett, and many others, that ' the radical terms em- 
ployed to denote action, passion, or state, had originally 
rather the force of nouns than verbs,' and this espe- 
cially in the Celtic, which, it need hardly be remarked, 
is one of the very oldest members of the Aryan family. 
If so, we must entirely give up the notion that the 
names of objects came from predicative or verbal roots. 
We hope, too, that the instance of the root tnp 
and the origin assigned to it, will show our reason 
for not attaching any importance to the whole divi- 
sion of roots into primary and secondary, which is 
elaborated in Professor Miiller's first series of lectures 
(p. 250). 

It requires but the feeblest power of abstraction — a 
power possessed even by idiots — to use a name as the sign 
of a conception, e. g. to say '^sun;' — to say 'sheen,' as 
the description of a phenomenon common to all shining 

^ Marshman, Chinese Gram. p. 23. 



CH. xviii. IMAGIIs^ATION. 199 

objects, is a higher effort, and to say 'to shine' as ex- 
pressive of the state or act is higher still. Now, fami- 
liar as such efforts may be to ns, there is ample proof 
that they could not have been so to the inventors of 
language, because they are not so, even now, to some 
nations of mankind after all their long millenniums of 
existence. Instances of this fact have been repeatedly 
adduced. Even in the Mithridates ^ we find it noticed 
that the Society Islanders have words for dog's tail, 
bird's tail, and sheep's tail, yet no word for tail ; that 
the Mohicans have verbs for every kind of cutting, and 
yet no verb * to cut,' and forms for ' I love him,' ' I love 
you,' &C.5 but no verb meaning 'I love.' The Choc- 
taws ^ have names for every possible species of oak, but 
no word for the genus oak. The Australians ^ have no 
generic word for fish, bird, or tree ; and the Eskimo, 
though he has verbs for seal-fishing, whale-fishing, and 
every other kind of fishing, has no verb meaning simply 
' to fish.' ' Ces langues,' says Du Ponceau, in his admi- 
rable Essay, ' generalisent rarement.' Thus, they have 
separate verbs for ^ I wish to eat meat,' and ' I wish to 
eat soup,' but no verb for 'I wish ; '^ and separate words 
for a blow with a sha,rp, and a blow with a blunt instru- 
ment, but no abstract word for blow. Mr. Crawfurd^ 
bears similar witness to the Malay languages. 'The 
Malay,' he says, ' is very deficient in abstract words ; 
and the usual train of ideas of the people who speak it 

' Adelung, Mithr. iii. 325, 397. See, too. Pott, Etym. Forsch. ii. 167. 
Heyse, p. 132. 

2 Latham, Eaces of Man, p. 376. 

3 De Qiiatrefages, Bev. des Deux Mondes, Dec. 15, 1860. Maury, 
La Terre et V Homme, p. 433. 

^ * Du Ponceau, p. 120. 

* Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, i, 68 seq. 



200 ON LAXGUAGE. ch. xvni. 

does not lead tliem to make a frequent use even of the 
few they possess. They have copious words for colours, 
yet borrow the word colour, icarna, from the Sanskrit, 
With this poverty of the abstract is united a redun- 
dancy of the concrete. No word for tree or herb, yet 
urat, fibre; akar, root; pdrdu, tree-crown; tanghai, 
stalk ; battan, stock ; tungal, trunk ; ddan and turuh, 
tsYig ; tukut, tunas, and gagang, shoot, &c.' He gives 
many similar instances, and an analogous one is to be 
found even in Anglo-Saxon, which had abundant words 
for all shades of blue, red, green, yellow, &c., but bor- 
rowed ^ from the Latin the abstract word * colour ; ' — 
and abundant names for every form of crime, before it 
borrowed from Latin the abstract words ' crime ' and 
'transgression.' With instances like these before us — 
and they might be indefinitely multiplied — who shall 
believe that the sun, and moon, and earth, had not been 
named at all until they received names from roots 
meaning to shine, to measure, and to plough ? or that 
cows and reptiles, and creeping plants, and flowing 
water, and clouds, made shift with being anonymous 
until after men possessed an indefinite number of verbs 
all meaning 'to go'?^ 

And now then, having cleared the way by these pre- 
liminary considerations, let us (though we might, as we 
have shown, fairly decline to accept any one particular 
test) very briefly consider whether there is no answer, on 
our principles, to the question, ' How are all things which 
do not appeal to the sense of hearing — how are the ideas 
of going, moving, standing, sinking, tasting, thinking to 
be expressed?' It would be tedious to go through 

' Dr. D. Wilson, Prehistoric Man, i. 61. 
2 See Prof. Key, uhi sup., 8-16. 



CH. XVIII. IMAGINATION. 201 

them all ; let us then take each alternate word. If the 
question can be answered for these, it can be as easily- 
answered for the rest. Let it be observed that in 
attempting to answer it at all we are doing something 
beside and beyond what our opponents ever attempt to 
do ; we are rising above 'that indolent philosophy which 
refers to a miracle whatever it is unable to explain.' 

' Ideas 1 of going.' I am not aware that anybody has 
attempted to explain the origin of the Sanskrit verb 
' ga,^ to go. Of other Sanskrit verbs with this meaning ^ 
there is at least a reasonable probability that 'pat' 
(also to fall) and sr, and srp (also to creep), are of imi- 
tative origin, as they are closely analogous to many 
formations of similar meaning which are confessedly so. 
Moreover, to confine ourselves to our own language 
alone, what shall we say of the words creep, crawl, 
dawdle, dance,^ rush, hurry, patter, totter, stump, stamp, 
and many more, to say nothing of such as expressly 
imply noise combined with motion, as whizz, whirr, 
hurl, &c. ? Every one of these is an ' idea of going;' 
every one of these is — and the proof is easy — onoma- 
topoetically expressed. 

^ Ideas of standing.' "^ It would have been difficult, 

' I must remark, ew passant, that I am not responsible for tliis use 
of the word 'ideas;' though, indeed, it is hopeless to redeem this noble 
word from the mass of confused usages into which it has fallen. Not 
one modern writer in twenty thousand uses it either carefully or ac- 
curately in its only true and proper meaning. 

2 As for the root 'i' 'go' in Ui/ai, &c., Plato says, t$ 5' av l^ra Trphs 
TO, AeTTTO TrduTU, a Stj jxaXicTTa Sia irdvTwv Xol av. In other words i as the 
subtlest of the vowels, is chosen, by a sort of imitatiA^e analogy, to express 
notions of movement, penetration, &c. Or at. p. 426. I leave this as I 
find it. 

3 Cf. Hebr. y^X tanzen, &c. 

* Plato, whether in irony or earnest, derives (XTda-is from a Uffis (not 



202 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xviit. 

perhaps, to choose any conceptions so apparently incapa- 
ble of mimetic or interjectional expression as these; yet 
their origin can be explained. It has long been noticed 
that combinations of s and t have been chosen in many 
languages as expressions of stability, 7g-t7j/ui,l, sto, setzen, 
sitzen, stemmen, &c. There must have been some 
reason for this, and we believe it to be furnished by the 
simple instinctive Lautgeberde st ! a sound pecuharly 
well adapted to demand attention (compare whist ! 
usht 1 &c.), and therefore well adapted to express 
stopping and standing as the immediate results of an 
awakened attention. Even Heyse was struck with the 
fact that the Lautgeberde offers a close analogy to the 
imperative sentence, and that st ! was equivalent to the 
command sta ! ^ stop ! 

^ Ideas of tasting.' An unfortunate selection to prove 
the difficulty of extending imitative words, because we 
believe that the word taste itself, together with nearly all 
its synonyms and words w^hich express similar meanings, 
are very easy onomatopoeias. Taste, for instance (Ital. 
tastare, Grerm. tasten, &c.), is from taxitare, a frequenta- 
tive of taxare, a verb defined by Aulas Grellius to mean 
' pressius crebriusque tangere.' Now tax is an open and 
unconcealed imitation, as ^ Tax, tax tergo meo erit,' in 
Plautus.^ And as for the difficulty or impossibility of 
similarly expressing other ideas of tasting, what does 
Professor Miiller say to the words y-1? ; Arabic, laluka ; 
Sanskrit lih, lak; X£t%&), lingo, ligurio? or the words 

going) with an euphonic epenthesis st ! {tj §e cnacns a'n6(pa<jis rod Uvcu 
jSouAerat elvai, Sid Se rhv KaKK(aTviff{j})v (rrdais uvofiaffrai. Cratylus, p. 
426). 

1 System, p. 73. 

2 Pers. ii. 3, 12. 



CH. XVIII. IMAGINATION. 203 

trinken, drink, quaff, saufen, souper, sup, soup, quaff? 
or to sugere, succus, saugen, suck? or to schmecken and 
smack ? or to gurgle, gulp, gobble, guzzle, &c. ? or to 
hundreds more whose origin may be less transparent, 
but is hardly less certain? Are these 'ideas of tast- 
ing' or are they not? are they onomatopoeias or not? 
The answer to either question can hardly be doubtful. 

I think, therefore, that on this point also the chal- 
lenge has been most fairly accepted, and fairly met ; for 
it would be no less easy to go through the ' ideas of 
moving, sinking, and thinking.' And here for the pre- 
sent I may leave the controversy. 



204 OJS^ LAI^GUAGE. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 



METAPHOK. 



Tlepl tS>v a.'8'r]X(iv airh twv (paivofxivwv xph o"r]fJieLOv(rdaL. Kal y&p Kal 
ivivoiaL iracraL airh rwv alaOrjaecou yeyouaai kuto. t6 TrepiTTToocriv Koi dvaXoyiay 
Kal oixoiorrjTa Koi avydecnu avixfiaWo/jievov ri /cat Xoyia-fiov. 

Epic. ap. Diog. Laert. x. 32. 

Baron Bunsen, in one of those eloquent and magnifi- 
cent bursts of dogmatism which are to be found in 
his noble book. The Philosophy of Universal History, 
after describing the Imitative theory in a manner which 
at any rate does not apply to any of its present holders, 
and which is based on complete misapprehension of 
their views, says that such a theory is not only disproved 
by all history and diametrically opposed by facts (!), but 
is ' a most absurd supposition in itself, as most objects 
have no sound luhateverJ' ^ 

If the former pages of this volume have not satisfied 
the reader as to the utter groundlessness of the first 
assertions, it is hardly worth while to argue further ; 
and I trust that he will have already seen enough to 
show that the last assertion is none the less erroneous for 
sounding at first mention plausible. If not, the follow- 
ing chapter will show that as an objection to our theory 
it has no weight whatever. Indeed, as we have several 



Ennserij ii. 131, 



m 



CH. XIX. METAPHOE. 205 

times observed, it is not true, to begin with, that ^most 
objects have no sound whatever.' Even the mass of 
objects in the dumb and inanimate world are so con- 
stituted that the sound produced by them is generally 
the best and truest indication of their character and 
properties. The clang of various metals, from the deep 
reverberations of iron to the tremulous shiver of thin 
steel, and the sharp tinkling of brass and tin — the 
whisper and splash of cohesionless liquids^the crackle, 
and blare, and roar of flame — the ringing resonance of 
stone and marble-— the creaking of green boughs — the 
ripping of dead wood — the clink of glass— the dull thud 
of soft and yielding bodies — the discontinuous rattle of 
hard, dry substances — the flap or rustle of woven fabrics 
in the wind— every one of these sounds, and of thousands 
more, betrays instantaneously to the ear the nature of 
every substance, and is recognisable even from a dis- 
tance and in the dark. And every one of these sounds 
is capable of articulate representation. It is not too 
much to say that there is hardly an inanimate substance 
in the creation which does not in some way or other 
connect itself with sound — that does not in some way or 
.otjier recall an acoustic image of itself. 

We have observed the influence exercised over lan- 
guage by the emotions {interjections), by the will [Laut- 
geherden), and the deep-lying instinct of imitation 
(onomatopoeia) ; it remains to see how the materials 
thus provided were moulded and multiplied by the 
imagination and the fancy. 

At first sight there might have appeared to be a 
difficulty absolutely insuperable in making audible 
sounds the exponents of impressions which come to us 
.through the gateways of four most different senses — ia 



206 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xix. 

translating for the ear the perceptions which we form 
through the medium of touch, and taste, and smell, and 
sight ; in giving expression — by means of the undula- 
tions of air sent pulsing upon the tympanum by vibra- 
tions of the vocal chords, and motions of the lips and 
tongue — to all that pleases or disgusts in contacts, and 
savours, and odours, and in the infinite many-coloured 
world of visual images. Yet over this seemingly fathom- 
less abyss of separation, Nature flings in one wide arch, 
and without an effort, her marvellous aerial bridge I 

The difficulty is at once enormously reduced by 
observing that nothing corresponding to the impressions 
of the senses has any objective or actual existence. 
There is no such thing in the abstract as a smell, a 
taste, or a colour. There is nothing in any way analo- 
gous to these words beyond the boundary-line of our 
own individualities. Infinitely small particles floating 
invisibly in the air rest on the fibro-mucous membrane 
which lines the nasal cavity, and by mechanical or 
chemical combinations affect the olfactory filaments, 
and we say that there is a smell; movements of air 
undulating on the tympanum a.re conveyed to the 
auditory nerve, and modified by the exquisite and 
dimly-understood mechanism of the cochlea, otolithes, 
and semicircular passages, and we say there is a sound ; 
rays of light falling on the cornea, and variously 
refracted by the crystalline and vitreous humours, pro- 
duce an inverted image of objects upon the network of 
optic nerves, and we say that we see ; the delicate sur- 
face of the skin, conveying the impression of resistance 
under various forms, leads us to say of an object when 
we touch it that it is hard, or round, or square ; and 
other impressions are conveyed by the tongue or palate 



CH. XIX. METAPHOE. 207 

which we say are sweet or acid. But what are the 
objective realities corresponding to the words 'a smell,' 
*^ a colour,' 'a sound,' 'roundness,' ^sweetness ?' There 
are no such objective realities, they are pure nonenti- 
ties. The words are absolutely meaningless, except so 
far as they express the modifications, however produced, 
of one and the same sentient subject. Even substance 
is but a purely hypothetical postulated residuum after 
the abstraction of all observable qualities. Nothing has 
any existence for us except as a synthesis of attributes, 
and even these attributes are not inherent in matter, 
but are merely affections of our personality which we 
project into the external world, and endow with a purely 
imaginary objectivity; they are but shadows of the 
inward microcosm flung by the light of our own life 
upon the external universe, and invested by imagination 
with an independent reality. 

When therefore we express by words the impressions 
of every sense, we are not translating from a number of 
languages which have no analogy with each other, but 
we are merely expressing a single subject — namely, 
ourselves. We are dealing, not with external realities, 
but with subjective sensations. The impressions, how- 
ever various may be the sources whence they are derived, 
all act upon a sensorium commune ; ^ however diverse 
may be our sensations, they are all of them nothing 
more than material changes in one common brain. In 
point of fact, we have not five senses, but only one 

^ 'Wie liangt G-esiclit "und G-ehor, Farbe und "Wort, Duft tind Ton 
zusammen ? . . . . "Wir sind ein denkendes sensorium commune imr vou 
verschiedenen Seiten beriihrt — Da liegt die Erklariing.' Herder, s. 94. 
By the name sensorium commune, however, I do not mean merely the 
brain, but the brain, the nerves, the organs of sense, &c. See Bain, 
The Senses and Intellect, p. 61. 



208 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xix. 

sense, the sense of feeling. There may be no connection 
between a sound and a colour; but since both the 
sound and the colour are but states produced in a 
thinking subject, the brain which is affected by the 
sound can use sound as a means of expressing the effect 
of the colour also. A smell, the striking of a clock, 
muscular resistance, and the form of a triangle, are 
separated from each other by an abyss of difference; 
there is nothing in common even between different 
sensations received by the same organ-^as white and 
black. Language expresses nothing but the relations 
of things, and as these are purely subjective, the mind 
which creates these supposed relations is also capable of 
expressing them. 

Hence, by an apparently instinctive process — a pro- 
cess, at any rate, not derived either from logical inference 
or physical research — we find throughout all language 
an interchange between, rather than a confusion of, the 
words which properly belong to different senses. This 
is especially the case in the terms expressive of light 
and sound. We find nothing to alter in such verses as 
*A11 the people saiu the thunderings and lightnings, 
and the Twise of the trumpet ' (Ez. xx. 18), or * I turned 
to see the voice which spake with me ' (Eev. i. 12). 
In ^schylus, ' The voice ^ and the clash are seen {Prom, 
Vinct 21, 22) ; in Sophocles the paean flashes {(Ed, 
Tyr. 187), and the echo gleams back from the distant 
rock {(Ed. Col. 137): by the voice the blind beholds, 
the ears of the deaf are sightless.' 

All the effects produced by the senses are indeed but 
different threads which Nature has woven into one web ; 

* Boyes, Elustrations to MscTiylus, &c., p. Hi. 



CH. XIX. METAPHOK. 209 

but between light and sound, the two most infinite in 
their revelations of the outer world, there seems to be 
a distinct and peculiar connection. 'They are,' says 
Lamennais,^ merely 'two different organs of the same 
faculty, two different manifestations of the same sense.' 
Hence, the Grreek Apollo is the god both of melody and 
of brightness. 

The imaginative power to perceive these analogies 
works instinctively and without reflection ; the mere 
copy or imitation of a sound is, by a new step in the 
progress of language — which is due to the imagination 
— elevated into a symbol for things which it cannot 
directly imitate, and finally, this symbol is promoted by 
the understanding into a general sign ; but each step is 
taken naturally and unconsciously. Nothing is more 
common in ordinary language than to hear people adopt 
these self-explaining and vivid analogies.^ We speak 
indifferently of a clear tone or a clear light; and the 
word ' tone ' itself is applied to a picture no less than to 
a harmony. No one is struck with a sense of incon- 
gruity when we speak of a gamut of colours, or a 
chromatic sequence in a piece of music. Sophocles 
speaks of a man as ' blind both in ears and eyes.' ^ Who 
does not see the beauty of this sentence in a modern 
writer? 'And as the chorus swelled and swelled till 
the air seemed made of sound, little flames, vibrating 
too, as if the soimd had caught fire, burst out between 
the turrets of the palace and the girdling towers. That 



» Esquisse dJune Thilosophie, in E. Arnould's Ess. d'Hist. Lit. 168. 

2 I gave some striking instances from the poets in the Origin of Lang. 
p. 126. In French there are several which are hardly admissible in 
English, as 'sombres gemissements,' 'lueairs eclatantes,' &c. 

3 Tvcpxhs rd T wra t6v re vovv to. t ufj-fxar el. (Ed. Tyr. 371. 

P 



210 ON LANGUAGE. oh. xix. 

sudden clang, that leaping light, fell on Eomola like 
sharp wounds.' ^ ' Is not the delight of the quavering 
upon a stop of music,' says Lord Eacon, ' the same with 
the playing of light upon the water ^ — 

Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus ? 

Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the 
organs of reflection — the eye with a glass, the ear with 
a cave or strait determined and bounded ? Neither are 
these only similitudes, as 7)ien of narrow observation 
7)iay conceive them to he, but the same footsteps of 
nature, treading or printing upon several subjects or 
matters.' ^ Hence it is that, by a purely unconscious 
sense of analogy, we find repetitions of light expressed 
by precisely the same kind of reduplication as repeti- 
tions of sound ; so that purpura and marmor indicate 
waves of light no less naturally than murmuro and 
susurro indicate waves of sound.'* Quick motions, also 
producing a soH of flash in the air, are represented by 
imitative reduplications, as papilio, the butterfly, which 
in Basque is chickitola, and in Botocudo is kiaku-keck- 
keck. 

^ JRomola, ii. 85. There is a direct etymological connection between 
fragor oxidi bright; between (pdos, 'light,' and (p-niJ-i, 'I say.' VideHeyse, 
s. 115. A writer whom I have previously quoted says, ' We can readily 
imagine the imitative tinJcle passing into the French etincelle and the 
English twinkle — the sharp delicate impression on the ear recalling that 
upon the eye.' Macmillan's Mag. 

2 Compare ' It is like listening to the mysterious music in the conch 
sea-shell ; it is like watching the fleeting rays of light which shoot up to 
heaven as we are looking at the sunset.' Robertson, Addresses, p. 227. 
Every one knows how Sanderson, born blind, compared ' red ' to a 
trumpet-note ; the reverse story of Massieu, the deaf-mute, comparing 
a trumpet-note to the same colour, is not so generally known. 

^ Adv. of Learning, bk. i. 

* D wight, Mod. Philology, 2nd Series,' p. 210. 



CH. XIX. METAPHOE. 211 

Nor is this interchange of the terms proper to diffe- 
rent senses at all confined to the eye and the ear. ' Ye 
have made our odour to be abhorred in the eyes of 
Pharaoh,' we find in Ex. v. 21 ; and 'truly the light is 
siueet,'' in Eccl. xii. 7. Dr. Kalisch correctly observes 
that what such expressions lose in logical accuracy they 
gain in richness and force; and hence we find them 
frequently in the poets, as in ^schylus, ktvitov SsBopKa, 
'I see a sound/ and in Lucretius, '^loca vidi reddere 
voces.^ Crashaw talks of ' the murmur of a sparkling 
noise ;' Akenside of ' tasting the fragrance of a rose ;' 
Byron of ^inhaling an ambrosial aspect^ The adjec- 
tives soft, sharp, hard, r)%ild, rough, smooth, are used 
indifferently of sounds, of lights, of touch, of taste ; ^ 
the adjective nice, which belongs properly to the region 
of taste alone, is on the lips of some people an epithet 
of universal meaning; and other adjectives, not pro- 
perly belonging to the domain of any sense, are trans- 
ferred indiscriminately to each sens 3, so that, for 
instance, we are not surprised to hear of a rich colour,^ 
a rich tone, or rich viands; of delicate tints, delicate 
odours, or delicate textures. To such an extent is this 
carried that we hardly notice it in ordinary conversation, 
nor are we struck by anything metaphorical in the turn 
of expression when we hear a person speaking collo- 
quially of a glorious day or a glorious concert ; of bitter 

^ The "whole subject is admirably treated by Wilbelm von Humboldt, 
Ueher die Verse kiedenheit d. menschl. Sprachbaues, s. 78, fg. But it is 
not easy to establish any clear distinction between words used symboli- 
cally (tfa^' ofioioTTfTo) and analogically {Kara duaXoyiav). SeeLersch, iii. 
63 ; Heyse, p. 95. One or two of the instances given above are quoted 
by Mr. Boyes, in his Illustrations to Mschylus mid Sophocles. 

^ In Chinese the word for a gem is also applied to a dainty. 
P 2 



212 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xix. 

cold, bitter experience, or a bitter taste; of a sweet 
smell, a sweet voice, a sweet taste, a sweet look, or a 
sweet feeling. 

We see then that there is no difficulty in expressing 
anything with which all the senses are conversant in 
terms derived from the instinctive or imitated sounds 
furnished to us by one of them ; and thus we are at once 
supplied with a nomenclature sufficiently ample for all 
the phenomena of the material universe. At every step 
in this part of the progress of language, the imagination 
is dominant. From this source is derived the whole 
system of genders for inanimate things, which was 
perhaps inevitable at that early childish stage of the 
human intelligence, when the actively-working soul 
attributed to everything around it some portion of its 
own life, but which has been wisely discarded by our 
own language as a useless encumbrance. To the quick 
fa,ncy of the child of nature it seems impossible to 
regard anything as absolutely without life. The Indian 
thinks that the shade even of his arrow will accompany 
him to the regions of the blest. Hence, well-nigh 
everything is spoken of as masculine or feminine. How 
completely fanciful were the analogies which in each 
case suggested the gender is seen from the different 
genders attributed in different languages to the same 
thing, and cannot be more clearly illustrated than by 
the fact that the sun, which in nearly every other lan- 
guage is masculine, becomes feminine in Crerman {die 
Sonne) \ and the moon, which so many nations wor- 
shipped as a goddess, is, in German, made masculine 
{der Mond). 

By a similar play of fancy, the names for various parts 
of the body are catachrestically applied to things without 



CH. XIX. METAPHOR. 213 

life.^ We talk of the leg of a stool ; of the foot, crest, 
spur, or shoulder of a mountain ; of the teeth of a saw 
or a comb; of the neck of a bottle; the tongue of a 
balance or a shoe, the eye of a needle, the head of a 
cabbage, the ai^m of a chair, the breast of a wave, the 
bosom of a rose. Even an island is an oe or ' eye ;' an 
isthmus is a neck; a harbour, a jaw;^ a central place, a 
navel ; ^ a crag is a tooth ; a river-bank, a lip ; and a 
promontory, a ness, naze, or nose. Plants are named 
from animals or the limbs of animals, as fox-tail, mouse- 
ear, goat's-beard, cock's-comb, hare's-foot, crane-bill, 
lark-spur. Even dead instruments or parts of them are 
called by the names of animals, as a monkey, a batter- 
ing-ram, a pig of lead,"^ chevaux de frise, a frog ; cochlea, 
a screw ; testudo, a penthouse of shields ; lupus, a bit ; 
iX^vo9, a pitcher ; Kopa^, a grappling-iron ; ovo9, sl wind- 
lass. Ships and ploughs, both as wholes and in their 
parts, are spoken of as living things.^ Attributes and 
functions of animate beings are transferred to the inani- 
mate, as living water, the living rock, ^mc^-silver, 
lively colours, couleur morte, bleu mourant, a living 
coal, dying embers ; a comparison stumbles ; an alley is 
blind ; the ground thirsts, and chinks in the dew. By 
a reverse process, the life of vegetables is symbolically 

* Heyse, p. 99. 

2 2aA|Uu877a-to yvddos, ^seh. Prom. V. 571. Both Job and Sophocles 
talk of ' the eyelids of the morn,' Job iii. 9 ; and in Ps. ex. 3, we even hare 
' the womb of the morning.' 

3 Judg. ix. 37 ; Ezek. xxxviii. 12 ; Ps. Ixxiv. 12 ; Soph. (E. T. ; Eur. 
Med.; Plin. iii. 12. It is hardly worth while to heap np references for 
the other instances ; for 'tooth,' see 1 Sam. xiv. 4; Job xxxix. 28. Por 
lip, Gren. xxii. 17, &e. Heb. 

■* Which the Grreeks called a dolphin of lead. Thnc. vii. 41. 
^ Heyse quotes Grrimm, Gesch. d. deutsch. Sprache, p. 56 IF. ; Pott, 
Meta^hern vom Lehen, in Aufreeht und Kuhn's Zeitschr. ii. 2. 



214 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xix. 

applied to the life of man ; we talk of the scion of a 
noble stock", the fruit of good works; 'a rod of the 
ste'in of Jesse ; ' a seed of thought ; the jpro^pagation of 
the Grospel ; a green memory and a green old age. We 
may notice, in passing, how powerfully the poetic in- 
stinct reproduces these tendencies of early language. 
What Mr. Euskin has called 'the pathetic fallacy,' is 
the indomitable desire to see in Nature, or at least to 
attribute to her, a sympathy in our joys and sorrows, 
our hopes and fears. Hence, to the imaginations of 
the Psalmist and Prophet, 'the hills clap their hands, 
the valleys stand so thick with corn that they laugh and 
sing;' ^the morning stars shout for joy;' *the moun- 
tains ^ skip like rams, and the little hills like young 
sheep;' the fir-trees howl, for the cedar is fallen; the 
raging waves of the sea foam out their own shame ; the 
heavens declare the glory of Grod, and the firmament 
showeth his handy work; the sun is as a bridegroom 
going out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to 
run his course. In modern poets the same fancy recurs 
with constant intensity, so that there is hardly a single 
aspect of nature which has not been made to express or 
to interpret the thoughts and passions of mankind, and 
hardly a single modern poem which does not illustrate 
this imaginative power. 

To the same source is due the universal prevalence 
of personification (or, as it is technically called. Proso- 
popoeia) in ancient times. To many ancient nations 

* It is curious to find the very same expressions in Chinese. ' Chu- 
king ait, Montes et coUes pro gaudio tripudiant, Tolncres etbestise Isetitia 
exultant et saltant ad citharse sonum.' P. Premare, Notitia Lingum 
SiniccB, p. 243. I am aware, however, that Premare's theories may have 
led him to heighten the similarity. See Stanislas Julien, Lao Tseu 
Tao-te-Ting, pref. 



CH. XIX. METAPHOR. 215 

the earth itself was a living creature, the stars were 
divine animals, and the very rainbow lived and drank 
the dew. No wonder that their 

Fancy fetched 
E'en from the blazing chariot of the Sun 
A beardless youth, wiio touched a golden lute, 
And filled the illumined groves with ravishment. 

No wonder that, in their belief, an Oread danced on 
every hill, a Naiad lurked in every fountain, a Hama- 
dryad lived or languished in every tree, and troops of 
Napaeads and young Fauns or gamesome Satyrs sported 
among the forest glades, while 

On the level brine 
Sleek Panope and all her sisters played. 

Mythology no less than language springs in great 
measure from these plays of a self-deceiving fancy. The 
primal men thought thus because they could not other- 
wise express their feelings, and they spoke thus because 
this inability to express themselves otherwise in turn 
reacted on their thoughts. Nor is Mythology unknown 
even in these days. We have long personified under 
the name of Nature the sum-total of Grod's laws as 
observed in the physical world ; and now the notion of 
Nature as a distinct, living, independent entity seems 
to be ineradicable alike from our literature and our 
systems of Philosophy. 

In the same manner human relationships are con- 
stantly attributed by analogy to external things. In 
^schylus the Salmydessian harbour is a stepmother of 
ships ; flame-smoke is the sister of fire ; dust the brother 
of wind ; and plunderings are the blood-relations of run- 
nings to and fro. In Pindar, Autumn is the tender 
mother of the Vine stalk ; and in Hipponax, the fig-tree 



216 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xix. 

is a sister of the vine. In the Semitic languages this 
figure occurs with astonishing frequency; e.g. in Hebrew 
and Arabic, sparks are the sons of fire, an arrow the son 
of a bow, a disease the firstborn of death; a sound from 
heaven is the daughter of a voice ; ^ a brave man is a son 
of valour ; an infant is the son of a year ; a confirmed 
boy is a son of the law ; a condemned criminal is a son 
of death ; a bad woman is a daughter of worthlessness ; 
lions are sons of haughtiness; a lynx is the son of howl- 
ing; a vulture is the daughter of a wing.^ The figure 
is more rare in modern poetry, yet Peele calls lightning 
' the faire spouse of thunder,' and Tennyson says — 

Earn well the tkrifty months, nor wed 
Eaw Haste, half-sister to Delay. 

But it is time to pass to still more important applica- 
tions of the imaginative principle. It is not difficult to 
see how by its obvious aid man might, by the methods 
we have been observing, frame a nomenclature for all 
that he could see, or hear, or taste, or smell, or touch. 
But how was he to name the abstract, the ideal, the 
spiritual, the mental, the imponderable, the unseen? 
how to name the intuitions of the reason, the conclu- 
sions of the understanding, the thoughts of the mind, 
the yearnings of the spirit, the emotions and passions 
of the soul, — nay how was he even to find names for 
the reason, the understanding, the spirit, the mind, the 
soul themselves? 

Could he have invented new terms ? would any mystic 

* Compare Milton, — 

'Left that command 
Sole daughter of his Toiee.' 
2 For a large number of similar expressions in Arabic, especially in 
the names of birds and animals, see Bochart, Uieroz. vol. ii. p. 230. 



CH. XIX. METAPHOR. 217 

'roots' have appeared by some inexplicable partheno- 
genesis in his intelligence ? Whatever might have hap- 
pened, this did not happen. Even if it had been 
possible to him, the instinctive dislike to needless neo- 
logisms, observable in every stage of the history of lan- 
guage, would have probably checked the development 
of such a power. At any rate the permutations and 
combinations of the few roots already supplied by ono- 
matopceia and interjections, were found amply sufficient 
for the new purpose for which they were required ; and 
this application of existing sounds was at once easier 
and more agreeable than a fresh exercise of the power 
of Invention. We see from hundreds of instances that 
even the misappropriation of an old term is greatly pre- 
ferred to the elaboration of a new one. The Greek, 
whose commonest relish was boiled fish o-^ov (from s-^ay 
I boil), used this same word even when his relish hap- 
pened to be garlic or cress ; and he preferred to say a 
horse-comber of camels {Ittttoko/jlos Ka^rjXwv) to saying 
a camel-comber ; and a hecatomb of twelve oxen (from 
stcarov =^\00) rather than invent an accurate name. 
The Eomans with their military proclivities called any 
interspace an intervallum, which properly meant a 
space between the stakes of a palisade. ' The silver 
pyxis' is quite a proper expression, though pyxis pro- 
perly means a box made of box-wood. Homer does not 
hesitate to say iKTiharj kwetj, or helmet of weasel- skin, 
though literally the expression meant * a weasel-skin 
dogskin,' just as 'serea galea' would mean etymologi- 
cally ' a brazen catskin.' In Exod. xxxviii. 8 we read 
of ' looking-^^asses of brass ' where the misapplication 
is as perfectly correct as the phrase ' a white blackbird,' 
because the word ' looking-brass ' would be intolerably 



218 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xix. 

novel. Mr. Tennyson shocks no one by the line ' Whose 
blazing luyvern iveathercocked ^ the spire.' The French 
talk of * un cheval ferre d'argent ' rather than compose 
a proper term for shoeing a horse with silver. A new- 
name is never resorted^ to unless it is absolutely essen- 
tial and indispensable. 

But quite independently of the necessity for finding 
articulate sounds to describe the phenomena of the 
mind — to express the strange unseen world of the Ego 
no less clearly than that of the Non-ego — there was 
another reason why all that was subjective should have 
been named by means of mere modifications of roots 
already acquired. For this shadowy unseen subjective 
world was incapctble of being knoiun at all except by 
analogy of those things of which we acquired a knowledge 
through the action of the senses. The mind, like the 
eye, becomes conscious of itself only by reflection from 
other things. We have seen already that men always 
explain and name the hitherto unknown by adopting 
the name of that known thing which most nearly re- 
sembles it ; and that they seem incapable of under- 
standing new phenomena except by the aid of such 
analogies as are supplied them by phenomena with 
which they are already familiar.^ This may be an in- 
tellectual weakness, but it is one which recurs with the 
regularity of a law ; and in the nomenclature of mental 
and spiritual entities it was inevitable, because those 
invisible things were only revealed and rendered cog- 

' Unless it be by the verb ! Imagine its being conjugated thus : I 
■weathercock, thou weathercockest, he, she, weathercocks, &c. ! 

2 Sarage languages specialise everything because they have so few 
abstract terms ; but it is a law of progressing language, to get rid of all 
exuberance, and to content itself with the fewest words possible. 

2 Charma, p. 258. 



CH. XIX. METAPHOR. 219f 

nisable by the things that are seen. 'It is a false 
assertion/ said Bacon^ long ago, ' that the senses of man 
are a measure of all things; because on the contrary, all 
perceptions, of the senses no less than of the mind, are 
from the analogy of man, not from the analogy of the 
Universe. And the human intellect is presented like 
an unequal mirror to the rays of external things; it 
mingles its own nature with the nature of things, which 
it distorts and confuses.' And this remark is the same 
as that of Proclus, being in fact a mere truism — to 
^'u^vondKov Kara rrjp savrov jljvcoo-ksl (pvatv — ' that which 
knows, knows in accordance with its own nature.' 

Let us then see a few of the analogies which suggested 
a terminology for the world of mind. 
. It is strange to observe with what unanimity the 
names for the soul of man have been borrowed from 
the most obvious* of invisible agencies, — the wind 'which 
bloweth where it listeth,' or possibly rather from the 
breath of life.^ Thus in Hebrew, alike J^5A nephesh, 
the animal life (Job xii. 10), D-n ruach, the human 
principle of life, and T]Dp) neshamdh, life considered as 
an inspiration of the Almighty,^ all have the meaning 
of breath or wind; and therefore resemble the Grreek 
words TTVOT), Trvsv/ma, and "^v-xfji of which the latter is 
derived from '^u%ttf, I blow. The Latin words animus 

* Novum Organum, i. 1, aph. 41 ; comp. Boethius, De Consol. Fhil. 
' Omne quod recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis.' 

2 Just as ' blood ' is often used for life, Lev. xvii. 2. See Gesenius, 
Thesaitrus, ii. 901. 

3 Of these words neshamah is never, and ruach rarely (Ecel. iii. 21), 
applied to animals. In Gren. ii. 7, ' a living soul ' should be rather ' a 
living animal,' or 'creature.' The Hindoos distinguish between Brah- 
mdtmah and jivdtmah, 'the breath of Grod' and 'the breath of Life.' — 
Vide Bohlen, Genes, ad I. 



220 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xix. 

and anima, the German Geist, and the English ghost, 
have the same origin. If we take other words of similar 
meaning, we shall still find them to have been derived 
from the analogy offered to the rapidity of thought by 
swift physical motion. Thus our 'soul,'' the Grerman 
' Seele,' is probably from the same root as the word Sea ^ 
and the Greek aslo) ; and the Greek 6u/jl6s comes from 
the root Ovco, airo rrj9 dvasws koI ^sascos rr/s yfryxv^-^ 
Again, the word reason, ratio, oratio, the German Rede, 
&c., come from the Latin reor, which is in all probability 
connected with the Greek psw, I flow; an etymology 
which, if correct, is curiously analogous to the derivation 
of 'soul' from the same root as the word 'sea.' If we 
enquire how men found a word for an act which most 
men consider so purely immaterial as that of thinking, 
we get to this result ; — that, since thought is inconceiv- 
able and impossible without signs of some description, 
and since words are the most umVersal of signs, it has 
been assumed that there is an indissoluble unity between 
thought and speech. Hence in Hebrew "»D^ and "^1*1 
mean first to speak and then to think, while n'»b> and 33n 
pass through the meanings of (first) to think, and then to 
speak, sigh,^ and murmur. Other words to express the 
same thing are derived from the notions of cutting 
(dividing, dissevering), seeing, and acting (compare 
thing and think, res and reor). The Greek (bpa^siv is 
to speak, <f>pd^scr6aL, to say to oneself, i.e. to think, which, 
according to Forster, the South Sea Islanders express by 
* speaking in the stomach.' In Latin, however, external 

* See Heyse, p. 97. 
2 Plato, Crat p. 419 c. 

' The similarity of the Hebrew H'^S^, and our sigh, is a noticeable 
instance of resemblance due to onomatopoeia. 



CH. XIX. METAPHOK. 221 

accidents of thought are selected to represent thought, 
as considerare, (perhaps) to fix the eyes on the stars, 
like our expression * star gazing ; ' deliherare, to weigh 
in the balance, like the French penser, and our ' to 
weigh a matter;' cogitare, to act with the mind; and, 
among others reor, which Home Tooke renders I am 
thing-ed,^ (!) and which, if the Eomans ever attached 
such an astonishing notion to it, would well deserve the 
title which Quinctilian ^ gives it of a * verbum horridum.' 
Again, the soul with its faculties, emotions, and de- 
sires is shadowed forth in language by the various parts 
of the body in which they were once supposed to be 
localised, or by which they are capable of being exter- 
nally indicated.^ Thus in Hebrew the heart, the liver, 
and the kidneys are used for the mind, and under- 
standing ; ' the bowels ' means mercy, like the Grreek 
aTrXajx^a ', 'the flesh' means lust; the loins, strength; 
the nose is used for anger, so that ' long of nose ' means 
patient, and ' short of nose ' irritable ; a ' man of lips ' 
is a babbler (Job xi. 2); the neck is the symbol of ob- 
stinacy ; the head of superiority ; thirst or paleness the 
picturesque representatives of fear. In Grreek the dia- 
phragm {4>PV^> renes, reins) is used for the understanding; 
the liver for feeling ; the breast for courage, the nostrils 
for contempt (cf. /jLv/cTrjpS9, &c.) ; the stomach and the 
bile for anger. Similarly in Latin, the nostrils are used 
for taste and refinement ; the nose for satire ; '* the eye- 
brow for sorrow or disdain ; the stomach for anger ; the 

* Diversions of Purley, ii. 5. 
2 Quintilian, Instt. viii. 3. 

' See numberless passages in Glass. Philolog. Sacra, p. 866 sqq. 

* Homo obesse, or emunctse naris in Horace, &c. In Turkestan, ' to be 
long-nosed ' means to be proud. See Vambery's Travels. 



222 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xtx. 

throat for gluttony. The Lithuanians use the same 
word for soul, heart, and stomach ; and the same is pro- 
bably true of many nations. Many of these metaphors 
have been transferred to English, and we also use the 
blood for passion (hot, or young blood), the phlegm for 
dulness, the spleen for ^nvy ; we say that a person has 
sanguine hopes ; we talk of a melancholy man, which 
means properly a man whose bile is black ; a man has a 
nervous style, or is nervous in the hour of trial ; and we 
say of a bitter-minded critic that he has too much gall. 
The words ^ body' or 'head' are common in all languages 
to express personality. The North American Indians 
constantly use ^body' in speaking of themselves, just as 
the Grreeks used Ssfia^ and Kapa; 'c'est un plaisant corps' 
is a common expression in French ; and in English 
'head' has even passed into compounds such as boy- 
hood, widowhood, and *so much a-head.' 

We are again reminded of the analogy between speech 
and writing. Tzetzes has preserved the following valu- 
able fragment of Choeremon on Hieroglyphics.^ ' For 
joy,' he says, 'they paint a woman playing on a drum ; 
for misfortune, an eye weeping ; for non-possession, two 
empty hands outstretched; for rising, a snake coming 
out of a hole ; for setting, the same going in ; for return 
to life, a frog; for the soul, a hawk, and the same for 
the sun, and for Grod; . . . for a king, a bee; — for the 
earth, a bull ; — a boy signifies increase ; — an old man, 
decay ; a bow, sharp force ; and there are a thousand 
other such.' We know, fi'om modern researches,^ that a 
cynocephalus stood for anger, a hand with a pair of oars 



* Quoted in Sharpe's Egypt. Hieroglyphics.- 
2 Encycl. Britan., art. Hieroglyphic, 



CH. XIX. METAPHOR. 223 

for a workman, a crux ansata and serpent for immortal, 
and so on in an endless series of metaphorical pictures. 

It is a proof of the extent of metaphor that almost 
every colour recalls at once its emblematic meaning.^ 
Black is indissolubly connected with notions of death, 
mourning, villany, and misfortune; white with inno- 
cence, candour, and festivity; rose-colour with beauty 
and freshness; purple with magnificence, luxury, and 
pride; red and scarlet and crimson with shame, and 
sin, and crime; yellow with old age, decay, and jealousy; 
green with springtime, vigour, and youth. 

It might have been supposed that if there were any 
one domain of language, however restricted, from which 
Metaphor no less than Onomatopoeia must necessarily 
be excluded, it would be the names of numbers. Yet 
what do we find on examination ? Eapidly as they come 
to be regarded as abstractions, the signs of the most 
abstract conceptions, yet they like all other abstractions 
were once living metaphors, images borrowed from na- 
tural phenomena. Thus five (the same word precisely 
as cinq, cinque, quinque, ttevts, the Gothic fimf, the 
Grerman /it??/, &c.) is derived from the Sanskrit pdni, a 
hand ; just as in Celebes, and among various Indian 
tribes, the words for ^hand' and ' five,' or sometimes the 
words for ^hand' and 'two,' are identical. In Chinese 
ny and ceul, '^two,' also mean 'ears.' The Abiponian 
word for four is gejenknate, which means the foot of an 
ostrich, from its four toes.^ The name r)iille, a thou- 
sand, is in all probability connected with iniliuni,^ millet 

* See Pott, Etym. Forsch. ii. 263 fg., where many illustrations are given. 
2 Pott, Zdhlmethode, p. 4 ; Pictet, Les Orig. Ind. ii, 578. 
^ This is at least as probable as the derivation from fivpioi. Dr. 
Donaldson, Varron. p. 263, connects it with mileSy ofx-iAia. Festus 



224 ON LAIS^GUAGE. ch. xix. 

grass, from the same root as mola, mill, &c., which are 
of onomatopoetic origin. It is therefore a metaphor of 
the liveliest description. The Grreek p^tXtoi is derived 
by some etymologists from 'xiXos a heap of fodder,^ 
p^sft) I pour, &c. Myriad is derived from the imitative 
root mur, which we find in murmur, the Grreek /xvpco, I 
pour, &c. The syllable tama, which in Gralla forms the 
compounds of ten, is derived by Professor Pott from 
tahamet, hair, and Grilj ^ informs us that the Orinoko 
Indians touch their hair to indicate a large number, 
just as the Abipons heap up handfuls of grass, or hand- 
fuls of sand. The Mexicans used the word tzontli, 
^hair,' for 400, and their hieroglyphic for 200 is half a 
feather. Their word for 8,000, xiquipilli, means 'sack,' 
because they had sacks which would exactly contain that 
number of cacao grains. In Chinese the word tome, 
which means 1,000, is borrowed from a root meaning 
' mist,' and therefore resembles the Latin phrase 'Nubes 
peditum,' and a ' cloud of witnesses.' In Sanskrit the 
word jaladhi, ' ocean,' is used for 100 crores of lacs of 
rupees. The morbid imagination of the Hindoos made 
them familiar with excessive numbers, and though they 
formed some compound up to a million (pra-yn-ta), with 
the syllable yu to add, yet for numbers like 10 billions 
they were obliged to resort to symbols such as padma 
or abja, ' lotus,' from the extreme fecundity of this plant, 

states that milium comes from mille, but obviously the reverse of this 
is the fact. L. Benloew, ubi infra, p. 68. 

' Donaldson, Varron. ih. It is connected with a Sanskrit root, Hila, 
seed. 

^ ' Si toccano i lor capelli in alto di stupore.' Gilj, ii. 332, quoted by 
L. Benloew, Recherches sur V Origine des Noms de Nombre, p. 64. Many 
of the particulars about numbers here mentioned are borrowed from 
Pott's Zdhlmethode, p. 120, &c. 



CH. XIX. METAPHOE. 225 

of which the fruit produces millions of grains. In 
Egyptian a lotus-leaf attached to its stem was the sign 
for 1,000.^ The Greek 'y\rri<f)os, the Latin calculus both 
recall the day when numeration was impossible without 
the aid of pebbles. If we examine the Semitic nume- 
rals we find a repetition of the same facts.^ For instance 
the Hebrew eleph meaning 1,000, is properly a herd of 
oxen, and possibly there may be an allusion to this 
meaning in the punning speech of Samson after his 
victory at Eamath-lehi; imeah 100 is not improbably 
derived from mio water ; shihndh 7 is considered by Dr. 
Mommsen to mean *a finger' from a root *to point,' 
because after counting five on his left hand, and begin- 
ning the number six with the thumb of the right hand, 
the forefinger or indicator would be seventh in order ; ^ 
shenayim ' two ' was doubtless suggested, like the name 
and form of the letter shin itself, from shen a tooth, 
either from the bicuspid teeth or the double row in the 
mouth which may also account for the invariable dual 
form of the word for teeth in Hebrew. Strange as this 
may sound it admits of many parallels. In Thibet and 
Java 'two' is expressed by jpaksha^ a wing, or by other 



^ I must again refer to the able and interesting pamphlet of M. L. 
Benloew, who has however borrowed most of his facts from Prof. Pott. 

^ We may here observe that whatever may be the apparent resemblance 
of the Sanskrit eka 'one' to the Hebrew icMd, and the Sanskrit shash 
* six' to the Hebrew shcsh, it is nearly certain (in spite of Dr, Donald- 
son's avithority in Maskd le Sophcr, p. 42 sqq.; New Cratylus, pp. 187, 
194 sqq.) that the resemblance is merely apparent, and purely accidental. 
It is not indeed impossible that the Aryans borrowed from the Semites 
the single number sapta7i seven (Hebr. 1*1^3^) from its mystery and 
importance in the Semitic system. The reader may see the question 
clearly discussed in M. Benloew's pamphlet, p. 95, &e. 

2 Hofer's Zcitschr. i. 262 ; quoted by Dr. Donaldson, Maskil le Sopher, 
p. 42. * Pott, 1. c. 

Q 



226 ON LAIS-GUAGE. ch. xix. 

members whicli are double as hdliu arm, vetra eye, &c. 
Among the Samoieds between the Yenisei and the Lena, 
the Sioux Indians, &C.5 two is expressed by ^hand' for 
the same reason. The history of the Hebrew word 
gnashtei ^eleven' is very curious; from gndshath to 
labour comes gnasJitoth a thought, and thence comes, 
according to Simonis, the word for eleven, meaning ten 
counted on the fingers and one in thought.^ In English 
the word score is from the root Sciran to shear, because 
^our unlearned ancestors to avoid the embarrassment of 
large numbers, when they had made twice ten notches, 
cut off the piece or Talley (Taglie) containing them; 
and afterwards counted the scores or pieces cut off.' ^ 
If then in a region so unpromising as that of numbers 
we find it so easy to trace the influence of onomatopoeia 
and metaphor where need we despair? May we not 
infer the origin of words in cases which are doubtful, 
from their origin in cases which are proved ? May we 
not say with De Maistre, ^ Ce qu'on sait dans ce genre 
prouve beaucoup, a cause de I'induction qui en resulte, 
pour les autres cas: ce qu'on ignore, au contraire, ne 
prouve rien excepte I'ignorance de celui qui cherche.' 

' G-esenius, Thes. s. v. ' Diversions ofPurley, ii. 4. 



227 



CHAPTEH XX. 

METAPHOR continued. — metaphor in various 

LANGUAGES. 

* Among these, fancy next 
Iler office holds, of all external things 
"Which the five -watchful senses represent, 
She forms imaginations, aery shapes, 
"Which reason joining, or disjoining, frames 
All what we affirm or what deny, and' call 
Our knowledge and opinion.' 

Milton, Par. Lost, v. 105. 

The pictorial Metaphors with wliicli all languages abound 
become obscured in course of time under the wearing 
and modifying processes of literary cultivation, into ' a 
mass of arbitrary, opaque, uninteresting, conventional- 
isms.' But the more ancient, and the more uncivilised 
a language is, the fewer are its abstractions, and the 
more numerous are its undisguised metaphors. These 
metaphors, no less than those of every poet, are due to 
the spontaneous and unconscious ^ play of the fancy and 
the imagination. An abridged personification, says 
J. P. Eichter,^ is the natural and necessary language of 
savage life. In modern languages it is by no means 
always possible to trace the sensuous image underlying 

* Heyse, p, 100. Steinthal, Urspr. d. Sprache, p. 27. 
2 J. Paid Eichter, AesthetiJc, § 56. 
q2 



228 OK^ LANGUAGE. ch. xx. 

every word whicli implies conceptions incapable of any 
but a symbolical expression. But in such a language 
as Arabic we may still see what the condition of every lan- 
guage must once have been. There the dominion of fancy 
and poetry is still obvious, and every word is a picture 
of which the colours are still bright and clear ; with us 
the power of abstraction is riper, and the sensuous 
element has left nothing more than the traces of its 
former prevalence. 

In fact a style abounding in metaphors is now gene- 
rally accepted as a proof of weakness, since for an ad- 
vanced stage of thought it is necessary as far as possible 
to attach to each word one clear meaning, as little 
mingled as possible with mere external analogies. 
Bergmann tells us that the turns of phraseology which 
the Kalmucks most admire in their own language * are 
precisely those which a more advanced civilisation, and 
a corresponding development of taste, would reject as 
spurious.' Similarly, ' the Koran is held by the devout 
Mahommedan to be the most admirable model of com- 
position; but exactly those ornaments of diction and 
imagery, which he regards as the jewels of the whole, are 
most entirely in the childish taste of imperfect civilisa- 
tion.' The gorgeous luxury of Oriental prose would 
with us be thought extravagant even in the most elabo- 
rate poetry, and we have long got beyond the stage 
which makes it almost impossible for an Oriental even 
to find a title for a book without calling it a mirror, 
a flower, or a pearl. 

A glance at the metaphors of some Semitic, Aryan, 
and Allophylian nations will perhaps illustrate and 
relieve our subject. 

In Hebrew the paucity of words necessitates the con- 



CH. XX. METAPHOR. 229 

stant use of metaphor. ' The Hebrew has scarcely any 
individuated words. Ask a Hebrew scholar if he has 
any word for a hall (as a tennis ball, pila lusoria) ; he 
says, " yes." What is it then ? Why he gives you 
the word for globe. Ask for orb, for sphere, &c. Still 
you have the same answer. The individual circum- 
stantiations are swallowed up in the general outline.' ' 
This latter instance is rather catachresis than meta- 
phor ; i. e. it is rather the application of the same word 
to different things, than the direct suggestion of a com- 
parison. But we can best see the rapid working of 
metaphor in the extraordinary diversities of meaning of 
which the same Hebrew^ word^ is capable. Take for 
instance the word "iin (Tor), which means a turtle- 
dove, an ox, 'a string of pearls,' a turn, and a manner ? 
Or again take the word -i-lji (goor) ; in its meaning 
of ' a lion's whelp ' we see the imitative principle again 
at work ; but how comes the verb, goor, to acquire the 
meanings to sojourn, to assemble, to be afraid, to reve- 
rence, to worship? Or take the word 2'i'V gndrabh, 
which in its various conjugations means to mix, to ex- 
change, to stand in the place of, to pledge, to interfere, 
to be familiar ; and also to disappear, to set, and to do 
a thing in the evening ; besides all this, with various 
vowel modifications the same three letters mean ' to be 
sweet,' a fly, or beetle, an Arabian, a stranger, the weft 
of cloth, the evening, a willow, and a raven. Assuming 
that all these significations are ultimately deducible 

^ De Q.uincey on Language, "Works, ^^iI, 81. To this is due the ex- 
treme uncertainty of rendering many Hebrew words. 

2 'Non est mirum doetissimos etiam Judseorum hodie nihil certi de 
rerum nominibus, ut animalium, plantarum, metallorum, vestium, iustru- 
mentorum, doeere posse.' Gresner, Hist. Quadrujp. 



230 ON LAi^GUAGE. ch. xx. 

from one and the same root, we see at once the extent 
to which metaphor must have been at work. In most 
instances the steps of the transition have vanished. In 
Hebrew the same word means fatness and ashes ; ^ 
perhaps this may be because the ancients used ashes 
for manure ; but who shall tell us with any certainty 
why lyy means ^ to become wise,' and 22? to make 
cakes ? 

Again, all Hebrew literature abounds in metaphor. 
G-lassius in his laborious Philologia Sacra (pp. 807- 
912) has collected innumerable examples of metaphor 
drawn from the sun, and moon, and stars ; from the 
times of the day and night; from fire, air, and water ; 
from the body, th^ life, the senses, and the actions of 
men ; and in short from almost every observable phe- 
nomenon of nature and of life. To take one set of 
phenomena alone, the mere names of the vine, the 
olive, the cedar, the lion, the wolf, the serpent, the fox, 
the horse, the heifer, the goat, the sheep will call up at 
once in the memory of the Biblical student the bold 
metaphors with which they are associated. Christ is 
' the true vine,' ' the branch,^ ^ the Lion of the tribe of 
Judah,' and ' the Lamb that was slain ;' Herod is 
' that fox ;' Esau is ' a wild ass of a man ;' ^ ' with- 
out are dogs,' and the Gentiles are ' dogs ;' Satan is 
' a serpent,' and ' a roaring lion ;' the Cretans are 
^ evil beasts.' 

With the use of metaphor in Aryan languages we 
are familiar, and therefore choosing the Grreek trage- 
dians as our storehouse of illustrations, we may from 

» PUn. xvii. 9. Gesen. Thes. s. v. |^!l 

2 Compare the Sanskrit nara-sinha man-lion, and 'two lion-like 
men of Moab.' 2 Sam. xxiii. 20. 



CH. XX. METAPHOK. 231 

their pages glean the further fact that in the metaphors 
of a language we may always learn the habits, the 
amusements, and the tastes of a nation. For no meta- 
phors are so common among these Athenians as the 
very ones which we should expect to be most frequently 
before their minds, namely those derived from hunting, 
and from rowing. Srjpdv ' to hunt ' comes to be a mere 
ornate word for * to pursue.' Thus Xerxes desires ^ to 
hunt Athens' {Pers. 229) ; an ambitious man 'hunts for 
the tyranny' {(Ed. Tyr. 540); 'it is not right to hunt 
impossibilities' (Ant 92); 'they will have come to 
hunt after marriages which cannot be hunted ' {Prom. 
Vinct. 860). Nautical metaphors are still more fre- 
quent. As for sp'scrasLV ' to row' we have it in all kinds 
of conjunctions ; we hear of ' rowing a plan ' {AnL 
159); to row with another is to aid him {Aj. 1307); 
the two Sons of Atreus row threatenings {Id. 246); 
^row round your heads the tabouring of your hands' 
{Sept. c. Theb. 836). A fair wind from a person's eyes 
wafts away a lukewarm friend {Track, 812); we even 
are told of ' the harbour of a cry,' ' the prow of the 
heart,' and 'the rudders of horses.' The Grreeks are 
generally supposed to have had little or no sympathy 
with external nature, yet the euphemistic pleasure 
which they display in the incessant use' of the word 
' blossom ' {avOos), no less than their fondness for 
garlands, shows that they were far from being dead to 
impressions of natural beauty. ' Disease blooms forth 
upon the flesh. The nightingale is shrouded in a 
bloomy bower of woes. The hoariness of old age is a 
white blossoming. ^ The misfortunes of a noble family 

1 Cf. Eccl. xii. 5. 



232 OK LANGUAGE. ch. xx. 

are made "to burst forth into bloom. The haughty 
speech is the efflorescence of the lips. Groans are the 
flowers plucked from the tree of anguish, and the 
chanters of the funeral dirge shower these upon the 
bier ; so that not only the custom but the very lan- 
guage of the Greeks, veiled as it were the deformity of 
death, and scattered the corpse with flowers.' ^ 

Before leaving the subject of Aryan metaphors we 
may further observe that the metaphors of a writer, no 
less than those of a nation, always carry upon them the 
strong mark of his own individuality, — as for instance 
the constantly recurring ' bow ' and ' wings ' in the 
Divina Commeclia of Dante ; and that the metaphors 
most frequently adopted at any particular epoch stamp 
with terrible energy the characteristics of the age. 
Take for instance the commencement of the Ckristiade 
by F. Hojeda : — 

Canto al Hijo de Dios, humano y muerto 
Con dolores y afrentas por el hombre : 
Musa divina, en su costado abierto 
Bana mi lengua y muevela en sn nombre, — 

^ I sing the Son of God, who was man and died for man 
amid anguish and insults ; divine Muse, steep my 
tongue in his open side, and make it move in his 
name.' Well may M. Arnould,^ from whom I quote 
the lines, ask whether any one but a Spanish monk 
in the time of Philip the Second could ever have 
written them ! 

If we now turn to the metaphors in use among 

^ Boyes, p. liv. Mr. Boyes lias so amply and so happily illustrated 
this subject of the metaphors in Greek tragedy, that in this paragraph 
I found all that I wanted done to my hand. 

2 Ess. de TMorie et d' Hist Lit. p. 203. 



(JH. XX. METAPHOE. 233: 

savage races we shall find them still more distinct and 
picturesque. Take for instance a few specimens of 
Kafir metaphors.^ Ingcala ' flying ant ' means 'great, 
dexterity;' inja 'dog' means a dependant; quanka 
' to be snapped asunder ' means ' to be quite dead ; ' 
zikhla 'to eat oneself means 'to be proud,' and there- 
fore is an exact parallel to Mr. Tennyson's expression, — 

Upon himself, himself did feed. 

* He is a wolf means 'he is greedy;' 'he is an ox' 
means ' he is strong.' ^ 

Some of the Malay metaphors are very lively. Thus 
mabuk-ombak ' sea-sick' means properly ' wave-drunk ;' 
mata-ari ' the sun ' is literally ' the eye of day ; ' Tnata- 
kaki ' the ankle ' is ' the eye of the foot ; ' mata-ayar 
' a spring ' is ' the eye of water ' (compare the Hebrew 
ry). The expression for an 'affront' is 'charcoal on 
the face ; ' a key is the ' child of a lock ; ' a knee-pan is 
the ' cocoanut of the knee;^ malice is 'rust of the 
heart ;' sincerity ' a white heart,' like the Latin ' candi- 
dum ingenium ;' impudent is ' face of board.' ^ 

Scarcely less ingenious are the metaphors in Chinese. 
'Capricious' is expressed by 'three mornings, four 
evenings ;' cunning or persuasive speech by 'convenient 
hind-teeth, ready front-teeth ;' ' disagreement' by 'you 
East, I West;' attention by 'fine-heart.' Neng 'a 
bear' means ' powerful;' 'hao ' a boar' is 'a brave man;' 
non ' the roar of water among stones' is ' anger.' ^ 

. ^ Appleyard's Kafir Grammar, p. 71. Some of these are quoted by 
Prof. M. Miiller, in his Second Series of Leetiu'es. I had however 
made a note of these long before I saw them there. 
2 Appleyard, p. 128. 

^ Crawfurd's Malay Gram, and Diet. i. 62. 
- * Premare, Not. Ling. Sin. p. 242. 



234 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xi. 

We encounter once more in Chinese the phenomenon 
which we have observed in Hebrew, in the number of 
different meanings possessed by the same root; a phe- 
nomenon not solely but mainly explicable by the in- 
fluence of metaphor. For instance, chou means a book, 
a tree, great heats, Aurora, and the loss of a wager ;^ 
Ou means * me,' and also an orator, nothing, a bat, and 
a kind of tree ; ^ Yu means ' me,' and also to agree, to 
rejoice, a kind of measure, stupid, a black ox, &c. ; Yu 
' thou ' means also milk, tender, to eat, honey-cake ; Y 
* he ' or ' she ' is also to laugh in spite of oneself, to 
sigh, a new-born infant, respect, a stout dog, &c. ; 
Tchy the sign of the genitive means also it, him, 
branches, to sustain, yellow fruit, a dead tree, and a 
labourer ! ^ 

We must here digress for a moment to remove a 
misconception. It has been the fashion to compare 
these homonyms with others which have not the 
remotest connection with them. Thus we have seen 
(in the note) that the sound ' cent ' has six different 
meanings in French, but these words had no original 
connection with each other, since cent comes from 
centum, sans from sine, sang from sanguis, sent from 
sentit, sens from sensus, sont from sunt, and s^en from 
se inde.^ Thus aune means an alder-tree and an ell, 

^ The missionary Bourgeois, in his Lettres edifiantes, bitterly com- 
plains of the consequent difficulty which he e^Lperienced in learning 
Chinese. 

2 It might be supposed that such a multiplicity of homonyms would 
introduce endless confusion into a language. Practically, however, such 
is not the case ; e. g. in French the words cent, sang, s'en, sans, sent, 
sont, sens, widely different as is their meaning, are never confused. It 
is the same in English with heir, ere, e'er, air, and Ayr, &c. 

^ Benloew, Be quelques Caractercs du Lang. Prim. p. 41. 

* Heyse, 210, 220. Similarly we have wrs 'towards/ from versus; 



CH. XX. METAPHOE. 23^ 

but in the former meaning it comes from alnus, in the 
latter from ulna ; Hail ! as a salutation in English is 
the Grerman heil, but as congealed water-drops it is the 
Grerman Hagel ; pecher ^ a peach ' is Malus Persica, 
pecher ^ to fish ' is from piscari, and pecher ' to sin ' 
from peccare ; tour ' a tower ' is from turris, and when 
it means ^ a turn ' i. e. a walk, it is from a late vulgar 
sense of tornare; louer ^to praise' is from laudare, 
louer ^ to let' from locare. These instances are only 
false analogies of those which we have been considering. 
They are accidental, being due merely to the phonetic 
corruption or disorganisation of a language in its ad- 
vance ; whereas those in Hebrew, Chinese, or Coptic are 
truly primordial and arose from that indetermination 
which characterises every primitive language, — an in- 
determination which it is the object of every cultivated 
language to mould into gradual precision. 

There are certain dialects or languages spoken by 
whole classes of men in all countries, yet unowned by 
any nation. Such are the Italian gergo^ furbesco ; the 
Spanish germania ; the Portuguese Caldo ; the Grer- 
man rothwelsch (red Italian?); the Dutch bargoens or 
dieventael ; the English cant, slang, thieves^ Latin, 
pedlar's French, St. Gileses Greek, flash-tongue, gib- 
berish., &c. ; the French narquois or Argot. This 
language of crime and misery — ' this pustulous vo- 
cabulary of which each word seems an unclean ring 
of a monster of mud and darkness,' is formed — (and the 

vers * a verse,' from versus ; verre ' glass,' from vitrum ; ver * a worm,* 
from vermis; vere 'truly' (in old French), from vere. In fact, so 
numerous are these homonyms, that in 1807 a Dictionnaire des 
Homonymes was published in Paris by M, de la Madelaine. Charma, 
p. 272. An interesting list of English homonyms may be found in 
Dwight's Mod. Fhilolog. ii. 311. 



236 ON LAIS^GUAGE. ch. xx. 

same remark applies partially to the harmless lingua 
franca of the Mediterranean, the Ligoa geral of South 
America, the Chinese pigeon-English, the Haytian 
French, the jargons of the Bastaards of Africa, the 
Canadian half-breeds, and the English, French, and 
Chinooks in Columbia)^ — by the adoption of foreign 
words, by the absolute suppression of grammar, by 
grotesque tropes, wild catachresis, and allegoric me- 
tonymy. The study of these corrupt dialects is a most 
fruitful field for the philologist, and suggests many of 
the primitive expedients and tendencies of language. 
Eut Metaphor is the widest and most important basis 
of them all, and it is adopted conventionally for the 
express purpose of disguise and concealment. The 
words chosen are all from the vernacular, but the senses 
are entirely different, and are all alleo-orical. Borrow 
points this out in his book on the Gripsies, and M. 
Michel,^ who has thought the Argot worthy of a serious 
historian, and who is the greatest authority on the 
subject, says, ' La metaphore et I'allegorie semblent 
former en efifet V element 'principal de ce langage. . . . 
Un fait qui ne saurait manquer de frapper un esprit 
philosophique a I'aspect de ce dialecte, c'est que partoitt 
Vargot est base sur le meme principe, cest-a-dire sur 
la metaphore ; et a cet egard toutes les branches de 



* See specimens in Latham, Var. of Man, p. 320 ; Appleyard, Kafir 
Gram. p. 10 ; l^odlev, Notions de Linguistique; Hutchinson, Ten Years 
among the Ethiojnans, pp. 21-32, &c. 

* Etudes de Fhilologie Comparee sur V Argot, par F. JMichel ; Paris, 
1856. Victor Hugo dwells on it in Les Miserables, Le Dernier Jour d\in 
Condamne, and Notre Dame de Paris; and it is also touched on in 
Yidocq, Eugene Sue, &c. There are several English slang dictionaries, 
&c., beginning as far back as the year 1560; and also in other lan- 
guages, as Studii sidle Lingue Furbesche, Milan, 1846. 



CH. XX. . METAPHOR. 237 

ce jargon se ressemblent.' * Again, M. Victor Hugo, 
whose splendidly powerful chapters on this subject in 
Les Miserahles are well worth the study of the 
Philologer, says, ' Slang is nothing but a vestibule, in 
which language having some wicked action to commit, 
disguises itself. It puts on these masks of luords, these 
rags of riietapJiors. In this way it becomes horrible 
and can scarcely be recognised. The metaphors say 
everything and conceal everything. The devil becomes 
" the baker." " Les sorgneurs sont soUicer les gails a 
la lune," " the prowlers are going to steal horses at 
night." This passes before the mind like a group of 
spectres, and we know not what we see.' 

Metaphor then is universal, and the Imagination 
plays a prominent part in every form of human lan- 
guage. It is in their earliest dawn (as we have seen 
already) that languages are most metaphorical. As 
civilisation advances, the fancy, to y/hich the origin of 
the word was due, is forgotten altogether, or remains a 
dead letter to the popular consciousness even when the 
etymology of the word is known.^ The intermediate 
factor vanishes, and the word appears as the immediate 
expression of the representation in its totality. To take 
one or two instances out of thousands : the word 
'caprice' is in very common use, and is a word to which 
a most definite meaning is attached; yet out of the 
myriads who use it correctly how many are distinctly 
aware that it is a metaphor derived from the swift, short 

^ Michel, icbi supra, pp. i., xxiv. The singular points of resemblance 
in the Argots of different nations are pointed out by Biondelli, Studii 
Linguistici, in a very interesting paper, Origlne, Biffusione, ed Im- 
jportanza delle Lingue Furbesche, pp. 107-120. ; 

2 Heyse, 164. . 



238 0:N^ language. ch. XX. 

leaps of the "wild goat on the hills ^ {ca'pTa, compare 
dt? from dt(j<T(o\ just as the Italian nuce comes from 
nucia a goat, and ticchio a freak from ziki a kid, and 
the French vei^ve from vervex a bell-wether ? Or again 
how often do people when they 'make a stipulation' 
recall the fact that the origin of the expression is a 
custom, dead for centuries, of giving a straw in sign 
of a completed bargain ? or when they talk of money 
remember that the word is derived from the accident 
that gold and silver were coined by the Eomans^ in the 
temple of Juno Moneta ? We speak of muskets with- 
out being aware that the word is ultimately derived 
from the onomatopoeia musso I buzz, whence come 
musca a fly, onuscatus speckled, muscheta a sparrow- 
hawk, and hence a musket ; ^ we talk of varnish without 
recalling the golden tresses of Berenice ; ^ of intoxication 
with no reference to the poison with which arrows were 
once smeared ; of a dunce without any intentional insult 
to the memory of Duns Scotus ; of a poltroon with no 
allusion to being maimed in the thumb ; of a saunterer 

* See Diez, s. v. Capriceio ; Scheler, s. v. Mr. Wedgwood, with less 
probability, connects the word with the roots riccio, ericiics (a hedgehog), 
herisser, ^pia-areiv. Etym. I)ict. s. Y. 

2 Probably the Romans thotight just as little of the interesting historic 
fact fossilised in the word^ecwwm ; and the Greeks of that involved in 
the derivation of o^oKos, which shows that money was first used in 
ingots (jSeAos). 

^ This derivation seems at least as probable as the one suggested by 
Mr. Wedgwood. The Italians called their muskets, &e., by the names 
of hawks, falconetto, sagro, &c. ; compare the French sacre, couleuvrine, 
&c. The Italian terzuolo, a pistol, properly means a male hawk, perhaps 
from the fancy that the third bird in a nest was a male, or because the 
male was one third smaller than the female. 

* This word, however, is disputed. It may come from the city 
Berenice, where amber-coloured nitre was found, or from vitrinus 
glassy. See Diez, s. v. Vernice, ed. Donkin. 



CH. XX. METAPHOR. 239 

with no reference to the Holy Land ; and not to multi- 
ply instances which any one can find in hundreds for 
himself, we go on ending our year with the months of 
September, October, Novemiber, and December, without 
once troubling ourselves with the consideration that the 
months are really the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th, and 
that our nomenclature merely continues to embalm an 
error of Eomulus nearly three thousand years ago. 

This complete evanescence of the original meaning 
of words and phrases gives rise to that confusion of 
metaphors which is so common in every literature. 
There is perhaps in careful writers too pedantic a 
scruple against ever mingling two conceptions origi- 
nally distinct. We are not of course advocating such 
reckless intermixtures as Lord Castlereagh's ^ My Lords, 
the main feature on which this question hinges,' or as 
that by the poetic young tradesman, quoted by Cole- 
ridge, who said that sorrows 

Eound my heart's leg tie tlieir galling chain. 

But when Milton wrote in one of his finest sonnets 

I bate no jot 
Of heart or hope but still bear up, and steer 
TJ^killward, 

we cannot but regret that the mere confusion of meta- 
phor involved in the words * steer uphill ward '^ would 
have made him alter that fine expression into the much 

* Comp. Sams. Agonistes'. 

' I hear 
The tread of many feet steering this way.' 
Probably the metaphor is a reminiscence of Euripides, Iph. Taur. 266 : 

&KpOl(T(. daKTVKoKTl TTOpOfxevuv 'iX^os. 

The word iropOneioj might have been added to the naval metaphors be- 
fore alluded to, for Euripides employs it constantly. 



240 OX LANGUAGE. oh. xx; 

tamer phrase ' Eight onward.' Who is annoyed by the 
confusion involved in Mark vii. 21, 22, Out of the heart 
proceed evil thoughts, &c., ' an evil eye ; ' or in 1 Tim. 
vi. 19, 'Laying up in store a goodi foundation^ {airod-q^ 
aavpl^ovrss) ; or in 2 Cor. v. 2, ' to be clothed upon with 
our house i^ or in 2 Tim. ii. 26, 'that they may recover 
themselves (lit. groiu sober, avavijyjfcoaL) from the snare 
of the devil ?' ^ The greatest poets have not been the 
most careful to avoid these incongruities, ^schylus 
talks of ' a beacon-light being a lucky throw of the 
dice^ ^ for a sentinel. Horace says 

U7'it enim fiilgore suo, qiii iprcegravat artes 
Infra se positas. 

And Shakspeare, to say nothing of his ^ taking up arms 
against a sea of troubles,' ^ shows in every play his 
lordly disregard of mere pedantic conventionalities in 
the way of accuracy. This passage, ^ extrait d'une piece 
intitulee La Tempete,' particularly offends the critical 
sense of M. Yarinot, the author of the Dictionnaire des 
Metaphores^ 

The charm dissolves apace, 
And as the morning steals upon the night 
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses 
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle 
Their clearer reason. 

"WTiat English reader with ordinary breadth of under- 
standing, found anything to jar upon his mind in this 

1 Glass, mil. Sacr. p. 919. 

^ rph 6| fiaXovarjs r^crS' ifxal (ppvKTwpias. Agam. 33. 

3 ' No image of the sea is suggested ; and arms, incongruous in relation 
to the literal sea, is not so in relation to a multitude ; besides that the 
image arms itself evanesces for the same reason into resistance.^ De 
Quincey, Works, vii. 121 (Black's ed.). 

^ Faris, 1819. 



CH. XX. METAPHOR. 241 

passage ? Yet listen to the groan of the French critic ! 
' II y a la tant de choses mal-assorties, que I'esprit ne 
pent rien voir avec clarte. Le inatin qui se glisse fur- 
tivement sur I'obscurite, et qui en meme temps la fond, 
les esprits des hommes qui chassent des fumees, des 
fumees ignorantes, et des fumSes qui voilent. Un 
poete peint un ange (! !) qui franchit les airs, et le 
represente au meme moment comme etant a cheval, et 
comme faisant voile sur le sein de Pair. II est impos- 
sible que I'imagination se forme un tableau net d'objets 
aussi confus.' Poor outraged historian of French meta- 
phors ! and what a drunken savage Shakspeare must 
have been ! 

•Many have bewailed the necessity of metaphor as the 
source of constant error, and the strongest proof of the 
weakness of our intellectual faculties. 'Yerborum trans- 
latio,' says Cicero, ' constituta est inopige causa.' ^ Un- 
doubtedly it is so ; but with such faculties as we have, 
metaphor, and the necessity for the metaphoric element 
in language, becomes fruitful of blessings.^ It becomes 
a means whereby we observe and compare the analogous 
phenomena of the physical and intellectual world. It 
adds somethicg of the grace, and charm, and mystery 
of nature to the thoughts of man. It is the very essence 
of our most poetical conceptions, and the best mode of 
shadowing forth our profound est intuitions. ^ Thought,' 
says the eloquent and ingenious Du Ponceau, ' is vast as 
the air ; it embraces far more than languages can ex- 
press ; or rather, languages express nothing. They only 
make thought flash in electric sparks from the speaker 

* Cic. De Oratore, iii. 39. Cf. Seneca, De Beneficiis, ii. 34, &e. 
^ See tliis subject more fully discussed in the Origin of Language, 
p. 136 sqq. 



242 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xx. 

to the hearer. A single word creates a crowd of concep- 
tions, which the intellect combines and marshals with 
lightning-like rapidity.' ^ 

It is idle therefore to complain that metaphor sup- 
poses a certain indigence, and that if the intellect were 
endowed with the power of directly and immediately 
seizing any phenomenon, and of providing an inde- 
pendent expression for every modification of our minds, 
it would be unnecessary to drag ourselves from one 
analogous idea to another.^ Obviously we must take 
the mind as we find it; and since it has not been 
endowed with the power of direct intuition into the 
nature of things it cannot dispense with tropes and 
allegories; which so far from hindering and obscuring 
our power of insight, are, on the contrary, its mightiest 
assistants.^ In the true and etymological sense of the 
word, they illustrate, i.e. they pour a flood of light upon 
our thoughts. And, reversing the metaphor, we may 
say with equal truth, that they are the gracious clouds, 
through whose vail it is alone possible for us to gaze 
upon the too-dazzling sun. 

A Language without figures and metaphors would 
of necessity be a language without poetry. We have 
already shown the truth of this assertion* by comparing 
the language of Science with the language of common 
life. It will be interesting to illustrate it further by 
taking the instance of any ' philosophical language ' 



^ Et. du Ponceau, Si/st. Gram, des Langues de T Amerique, p. 32. 

2 Charma, p. 100. 

^ See Arist. ^het. m. i. 2. In fact tliey perform in language something 
of the same function as the symbolic actions of orators or poets. They 
make our thoughts more clear, graphic, vivid. 

^ Origin of Lang. p. 134 sqq. 



CH. XX. METAPHOR. 243 

framed in strict accordance with these supposed prin- 
ciples of perfection. 

' Une langue philosophique ! ' says Du Ponceau, ' bon 
Dieu, qu'est-ce qn'une langue philosophique ? . * . une 
langue philosophique ! et pourquoi non un monde, une 
creation tout entiere de la main et de la fapon des philo- 
sophes?' There have however been several attempts at 
languages framed on these accurate principles, intended 
by their inventors to serve as an unerring medium of 
communication among all nations.^ The seventeenth 
century seems to have been particularly fertile in them. 
A Grerman prince offered a reward of 300 crowns for 
the best universal language, and Becker wrote in conse- 
quence his Notitia Lingiiarum universalis. The prince 
repaid him by compliments, and asked him to dinner, 
^ which was more,' says Du Ponceau, 'than the thing 
was worth.' It was published in 1661 at Frankfort, and 
is now very rare. In the same year was published Dal- 
garno's Ars SignoruTn, vidgo Character universalis. 
Lond. 1661.^ It is founded on the assumption that 
there has been a complete and certain distribution of 
all things and ideas. A few years after (in 1668) ap- 
peared the celebrated Essay toiuards a Philosophical 
Language of Bishop Wilkins, occupying an enormous 
folio volume. Its ingenuity was undoubted, and ' uni- 



^ M. diarma, pp. 290-300, gives a long list of writers who have 
touclied on this subject, as Herra. Hugo, Bacon, Des Cartes, Dalgarno, 
WiUdns, Becker, Kircher, Jo. Voss, Leibnitz, De Brosses, Changeiix, De 
Maimieux, Destrutt de Tracy, Laromiguiere, Grosselin, &e. See espe- 
cially Degerando, Des Signes et de I' Art de peoiser, iv. 10. Some of 
these systems were founded on a self-explaining pasigraphy^ in which 
e. g. necessity was expressed by a chain, diiration by a clock, equality 
by two parallel lines, a method by a geometrical instrument, &c. 

2 See Hallam, Lit. of Europe, iii. 362. 
R 2 



244 OX LAIS^GUAGE. ch. xx. 

formity, the perfection of small geniuses, was observable 
tbrougbout it.' The substantives were a series of anti- 
theses. Thus da meant Grod, ida devil ; dad heaven, 
odad hell ; dah soul, adah body ; 'pida presence, pidas 
absence ; tadu power, tadus imbecility. The numbers 
were fashioned on similar principles, — pobal 10, pohar 
100, poham 1,000. It would be impossible to imagine 
any spoken language so inconceivably dry, and dreary, 
and bald, and dead as this. 'I do not know,' observes 
Du" Ponceau,^ ^whether any one ever studied, learnt, or 
cultivated this language. It is only found in some 
libraries, a sad monument of the aberrations of the 
human intellect.' Without absolutely endorsing so se- 
vere a remark, we may certainly agree Avith Hallam that 
'it is very fortunate that neither of these ingenious but 
presumptuous attempts to fasten down the progressive 
powers of the human mind by the cramps of association 
had the least success.' 

The metaphors without which no language worthy 
of the name can even exist are a proof of the human 

^ He mentions also the Specieuse-G^nerale, a philosophic language by 
which Leibnitz designed to reduce to a -sort of calculus the expression of 
all truths. It appears from a work of Easp.e (Hist. Linguce Charac- 
teristicce) to have represented exevj idea by nupibers, and was supposed 
capable both of ehminating all errors, and leading to new discoveries. 
'It only wanted a grapimar and dictionary to make it complete!' 
Another was invented by a M. Faignet, and England was imposed upon 
by a pretended language of the Island of Formosa, invented by a French 
deserter, who ludicrously called himself Psalmanasar ! See Du Ponceau, 
pp. 26-31. Probably huiidreds of such attempts have been stiU bom. 
Quite recently I have seen one by M. Letellier, Etablissement immediat 
de la Langue Universelle, 1862. There must be singular fascination in 
a problem which has interested so many great minds. Among others 
3Ir. Babbage was once attracted by it. Passages from the Life of a 
her, p 25. 



CH. XX. METAPHOE. 245 

invention of language, because they are confessedly 
formed on indirect and imperfect analogies, and are 
sources of constant ^ ambiguity and error. But for this 
very reason they are best suited to our limited human 
condition. Who would insult the stars because at night 
he can no longer see the sun ? We live but in the 
twilight and the moonlight, and the very dimness of our 
vision saves us' perhaps from a thousand dangers. The 
old bon mot, found in so many different forms,^ ' that 
the true use of speech is not so much to express our 
thoughts as to conceal them,' false as it is in one sense, 
is capable, in another sense, of an innocent application. 
At no period of history was it more evident than now, 
that the passions of men would be far more furious and 
uncontrollable than they are, if it were not possible to 
maintain a truce by the common acceptance of words 
and formulas which are fairly and honestly capable of 
expressing widely different forms of belief. The gra- 
cious shadows, the beneficent imperfections of language, 
save us from being scorched up by a fulness of truth for 
which we are yet but ill-adapted. Unhappy would be 
the nation which should have a perfect language. It 
would be a field of battle continually bathed in blood ; 
language would then be the mirror of our thoughts, and 
would reveal with intolerable clearness all our passions, 
and all our susceptibilities.^ 

1 See Mill's Logic, i. 48. 

2 Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. The saying is usually but 
erroneously attributed to Talleyrand ; it occurs also in one of Voltaire's 
dialogues, and in a couplet of Young's. See Fearls and Mock Pearls 
of History. 

^ Du Ponceau, p. 225. This is one of the many striking thoughts 
with which his singularly able Essay abounds. 



246 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xx. 

We have spent some time over the consideration of 
metaphors, but perhaps not too long, when we consider 
that by their means a breath of air may be said to be- 
come the picture and exponent alike of the seen and of 
the unseen Universe. 



247 



CHAPTEE XXL 

OTHER LINaUISTIC PROCESSES. 



'O \6yos did(j)cavos Koi b vovs ttoik'lKws rpeTrerai. 

Pyerho in Dioff. Laert. ix. xi. 95. 



It may be well, before we proceed farther, to sum up 
briefly the main results which the previous pages have 
been intended to develop, to illustrate, or to prove. 

Language then was not a direct Kevelation of the 
Mmighty ; nor was it an inevitable result of our 
physical organisation ; nor was it a purely mechanical 
iivention, accepted by general agreement, in conse- 
qience of a felt necessity : — but the capacity for Lan- 
giage was a part of our human constitution, and in the 
development of this capacity, the Senses, the Memory, 
th( Understanding, the Emotion, the Will, and the 
Inagination all played their part. The great secret — 
th( Divine Idea of Language became intuitively evident 
to man from the working of his Intellect upon two 
strctly analogous facts. He found that the effect of 
poverful passion was to force from him involuntaty 
spmtaneous sounds, which, when repeated, recalled the 
passions by which they had been originally stimulated, 
ard not only recalled them by virtue of the Law of 
Association to him who had originally felt them, but 
a'so conveyed and expressed them to others who were 



248 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxi. 

similarly affected by similar causes. But besides this, 
as may still be observed in children, the delicate sen- 
sibility of the nervous system in the still fresh and 
unworn human organism gave rise to a spontaneous 
echo of external sounds, an echo which partly repeated 
and imitated the sounds themselves, and partly modified 
them in accordance with the ideal impression which 
they reproduced. Originally this repercussion of the 
sounds which had thrilled the auditory nerve was not 
due primarily to an instinct of conscious imitation, but 
to a far subtler law of physical sympathy with the outer 
world ; but as it conveyed a pleasurable sense of power 
it would at once be adopted as a voluntary exercise 
apait from any necessity. In this instance also it would 
be instantly discovered that the imitative sounds, how- 
ever modified by organic or subjective influences, in- 
evitably recalled, by the same law of association, the 
external phenomena with which they were connected. 
In both cases it would be instantly discovered tha: 
sounds were capable of becomiog signs not of souncfe 
only but of things. Here then were the elements ♦f 
language ; here lay hidden the germs of that infinLe 
discovery which made man worthy of his destined in- 
mortality ; here, ready provided by the working of 
divine laws, were the materials by which he was enabbd 
to express his own sensations, and to recall the m(st 
striking aspects and influences of the world in which le 
Hved. 

The nascent intelligence, sharpened by the wants of 
life, at once saw the importance of this marvellois 
faculty, and began with unerring and unconscious ii- 
stinct to work upon it. Man soon found that it wis 
not necessary to rest content with crude interjectiors 



CH. XXI. OTHER LINGUISTIC PROCESSES. 249 

and vowel sounds, to express his own feelings, or rough 
reproductions to recall the living creatures and num- 
berless influences of the outer world. The interjections 
and imitations were more and more modified, till they 
barely retained the faintest echo of their sensuous origin. 
They were soon accepted as purely ideal signs, and 
their history and derivation was in the course of ages 
as completely forgotten or obscured as if they had been 
meaningless tokens arbitrarily adopted and absolutely 
devoid of any historical connection with the meanings 
for which they stood. 

The intimate relation, — perhaps we may say the 
ultimate identity, — of the effects produced by different 
senses, would at once suggest the possibility of observing 
analogies so far as to translate into sounds addressed to 
the ear alone, the impressions produced by every other 
sense ; and it would be an easy transition to adopt the 
same principle in shadowing forth by self-suggesting 
symbols those spiritual and intellectual phenomena 
which were none the less really felt from their being 
intangible and unseen. The power of Imagination, 
however simply and almost unconsciously exercised, was 
fully adequate to the task thus imposed upon it. In 
fact it is very probable that long periods would elapse 
before it was c .lied upon in any la,rge measure to claim 
its dominion over the higher realms of speech. The 
rich religious, spiritual, metaphysical, and moral vo- 
cabulary of the most civilised Aryan nations must not 
be taken as any measure of the wants of primeval lan- 
guage. If to this day the Chinese can only express the 
notions of ^virtue' or 'happiness' by crude analyses 
four-words-long ; — if many savage nations are destitute 
of words for the conceptions of the very commonest and 



250 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xxi. 

most ordinary virtues ; — if, even in languages of con- 
siderable cultivation, it is a matter of no slight diffi- 
culty to find a proper term for the Divine Being ; — nay, 
more, if a language so powerful and noble, so greatly 
enriched from a thousand different sources as the 
English, had until two centuries back no word for 
' selfishness,' the most prevalent of all human vices, — is 
it likely that Language would be overburdened at its 
commencement with the demands likely to be made 
upon its capacity for metaphorical expression ? 

The word ' selfish' to which I have just alluded was 
due to an accidental flash of individual genius, and this 
has probably been the source of many words most 
valuable and astonishing in their picturesque or imagi- 
native power. L- Many a poet who never sang, — many 
an unknown demigod whose discoveries have never been 
recorded, has thus contributed his forgotten share to 
the sum of human wisdom and knowledge. There 
must have been hundreds of tentative words, main- 
taining side by side a precarious life in the struggle for 
existence, before the vitality of those that deserved per- 
manence could be fully tested. We have seen already 
that every sound produces an impression which admits 
of manifold forms of vocal expression ; and it is still 
more true that all those phenomena which were in- 
capable of direct vocal representation, admitted of 
many different names because they might be regarded 
in a thousand difi*erent aspects, and furnished a thou- 
sand different characteristics. Many of these character- 
istics must have been simultaneously seized upon as 
marks of the conception before any one of them was 
finally chosen. Never perhaps was there a higher scope 
for heaven-born genius than that which was offered to 



CH. XXI. OTHER LINGUISTIC PEOCESSES. 25 

men before the plasticity of language had been moulded 
by writing and literature into rigid, determinate, and 
intractable forms. 

As an instance of the different points of view from 
which the same thinoj could be re^'arded let us take the 
word 'left.' In the Polynesian languages it means 
' South,'' because the Islanders turn to the west to find 
the cardinal points; yet in Latin^ 'Iseva' is used for the 
East, and in Grreek dpiarspa is used for the West, 
because in taking omens the Grreek augur turned to 
the North, and the Eoman to the South ; and in the 
Semitic languages again, from the custom of turning to 
the East for devotion, ' left' means North. Hence ' left' 
has been used among different nations for every one of 
the four points of the compass.^ 

It is however still more strange to find the same 
root not only used for different notions, but actually 
applied to things which • are essentially contradictory. 
Thus in Chinese louan means both ' to make a distur- 
bance,' and 'to govern well;' ton is both 'to poison' 
and ' to nourish ; ' kon is both a worm-eaten vessel, and 
' to mend a vessel ; ' tsing ' pure,' ' clean,' is used for 
'a sink.'^ In Hebrew^ S"i3 means both 'he created' 
and 'he destroyed;' -|^n means both he 'blessed' 
and ' cursed ; ' hhn means both ' to shine' (Job xxix. 3) 

' See Garnett's Essays, p. 287. Hundreds of instances might be given 
where the shades of meaning acquired by the same word in different 
languages have been widely different from each other. Thus the root 
wilwan 'to plunder' furnishes both the Latin Vul^oes, and the German 
Wolf. The German Stuhl means a stool; the Eussian stol a table. 
The German Zaun means ' a hedge,' and is the same word as our 'town,' 
&c, Benloew, 8ur les Noms de Fomhre, p. 85. 

2 Premare, Not. Ling. Sin. p. 242. 

^ Glass. Fhilol. Sac?', p. 746. Gesenius, Thesaur. s. v. "13 J. 



252 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xxi. 

and to be inglorious (Ps. Ixxv. 5); ^on is used for 
both reproach and kindness ; Vd:: both for irffidelity 
and for constancy; i^^p is applied both to the holiest 
and the most contamiDated things; ni^n implies both 
longing and abhorrence. The Hebrew root nnt^ to be 
willing means in Arabic to be unwilling ; one word in 
Arabic means both to be kindled and to be extin- 
guished, and the same, root is used for to be righteous 
and to be unjust. In Sanskrit bJdruka means both 
timid and formidable. We find similar contradictori- 
ness in the applications of the Greek ^ roots which occur 
in djo^, XP'^^i dnru), &c., the Latin words cams, sacer, 
&c., the English fast, dear, &c. Thus too in Grreek the 
prefix d is sometimes negative, sometimes copulative or 
perhaps intensive ; and in Grerman the inseparable pre- 
positions ent- and ver- sometimes express negation and 
sometimes not. The explanation of the phenomenon is 
to be found in the Law of Association of Ideas, and the 
harmony of the apparent discord is generally dis- 
coverable in the history of the word itself. In some 
cases the word or root which has acquired opposite 
senses was really a /jtsarj Xe^ls like the Hebrew Barak 
involving the notion of a solemn address to Grod, and 
therefore equally applicable to blessing and cursing ; or 
the Latin ' sacer' which means set apart or tabooed, 
and therefore is equally applicable to things sacred and- 
things accursed. 

But in other ca.ses of contradictory roots the explana- 
tion lies in the fact that Association works often by 
contrasts, and a thing recalls its opposite, and therefore 
at once sugo^ests thiat use should be made of the same 
name. For ' the number of things ^ known to us, and 

' See Dr. Donaldgon, New Cratyl p. 80. ^ Mill's Logic, i. 231. 



CH. XXI. OTHER LINGUISTIC PROCESSES. 253 

of which we desire to speak, multiply faster than the 
names for them. Except on subjects for which there 
has been constructed a scientific terminology, with 
which unscientific persons do not meddle, great diffi- 
culty is generally found in bringing a new name into 
use ; and independently of that difficulty it is natural to 
prefer giving to a new object a name which at least 
expresses its resemblance [or contrast] to something 
already known, since by predicating of it a name en- 
tirely new, we convey no information, . . . The more 
rapid growth of ideas than of names thus creates a per- 
petual necessity for making the same names serve, even 
if imperfectly, on a greater number of occasions.' In 
this principle we find the explanation of the contra- 
dictory application of roots ; it becomes easy to under- 
stand why in Hebrew (in which language the most 
striking instances of the fact are supplied) ^5p^ means 
' to sin,' and i<W ' to expiate sin ;' ^1^ ^ to root up,' 
and ^i)^ ' to take root.' 

The ancient philosophers and grammarians singularly 
mistook this principle of nomenclature, which they 
called Kar svavTLoxTiv or the naming by opposites. 
Nothing can be more confused than their method of 
treating it, and this perhaps arises from their utter and 
necessary ignorance of the Science of Etymology. Ob- 
serving that in some rare and extreme cases Euphemism,^ 
the use of pleasing and well-omened words, passed into 
Antiphrasis, the denomination of things positively harm- 
ful by beneficent names (as in 'the gentle ones ' for the 
Furies, and 'the better' or 'the w^ell-named' for the 

^ Probably, howeyer, neither Manes nor Pareae, though so often ad- 
duced, are instances of Euphemism. Of this subject we shall treat 
further on. 



254 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxt. 

left hand), they carried the same principle into ordinary 
words, and were content to derive lucus ^ a grove ' a 
lion lucendo, from its excluding the light; ^ coelum Hhe 
heaven' from celatura ^concealed,' because it was open; 
hellura ^war' from helium beautiful, ^quod sit minime 
bellum;' aridurii 'dry' from aphcvsLv ^to water,' be- 
cause it had ceased to be watered,^ &c. ! These absur- 
dities are pardonable enough in Tarro, Donatus, or 
Charisius, but it is s' range that they should have been 
repeated for so many centuries. It is quite true that 
Irony, preventing any possibility of error by a change 
of tone, often contemptuously pronounces the opposite 
of what it intends, as when Micaiah the son of Imlah 
says to Ahab, ^ G-o up to Eamoth-Grilead and prosper, 
for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the kino-,' 
or as when the indignant Ida exclaims — 

You liaye done well, 
And like a prince and like a gentleman. 

And sometimes the feeblest and most meaningless kind 
of Irony confines itself to a single word, as when a 
dwarf is nicknamed Atlas, or a very ugly woman is 
called Venus. But it may safely be asserted that no 
such preposterous and pointless process as this could 
ever have been deliberately adopted as a method of 
providing words. Many instances can be adduced in 
which the relation of contrast has led to the adoption 
of the same root to express, under slight modifications, 
opposite conceptions ; but this differs entirely from the 

* Lucus is another form of locus, and originally means a clearance in 
a grove, "which explains its connection -with lux. The derivations of 
codum and helium are obrious. 

- Lersch, Sprachpldl. iii. 133. Lobeck has written one of his ex- 
haustire papers Be Antiphrasi et Euphemismo. 



CH.xxi. OTHEE LINGUISTIC PROCESSES. 255 

ancient notion of Antiphrasis, or a deliberate calling of 
things after properties which thej do not possess, — an 
erroneous notion which may be finally banished from 
the list of linguistic processes. 

ProcluSj in his commentary on Plato's Cratylus,^ gives 
a catalogue raisonne of some fifteen methods for form- 
ing words, as for instance — 1. by imitation {Kara ^jbifMr]- 
aiv), as to hiss (cr/f(w) ; 2. by reference to something 
else, or analogy; 3. by catachresis, the recognised mis- 
application of a word, as when we say that a sound is 
sweet; 4. pseudonymously, i.e. with a disregard of the 
etymological meaning, as when we talk of a silver box, 
or a brass looking-glass ; 5. Avith a reference to history, 
as 6/3oX69 an obol, from jSsXos an ingot ; 6. by an ex- 
tension of meaning {sTrihiaTsraKOTo), as ^(oypd(poy, pro- 
perly a painter of animals, to a painter of any other 
objects ; 7. hyperbolically, as when we talk of a man's 
having no heart; 8. euphemistically, as w^hen we call 
the Furies ^gentle ones;' 9. analogically, as when we 
talk of the head of a mountain, or the leg of a table ; 
10. from resemblance, as when we say that a man's 
frame of mind was crude and bitter ; 11. by slight modi- 
fication of existing words; 12. elliptically, as rpdirs^a 
for raTpdirs^a; 13. from discoverers, as when we call 
wine ^Bacchus;' 14. from things invented, as when we 
call Vulcan 'fire;' 15. by excess (/ca^' virspox'qv), as 
when we call a cask ' a tile ' (^Kkpafxos), and a physician 
'a chirurgeon' (j(sipovp'y6s)\ and to these he might have 
added many others, — for instance, by synecdoche, as 
when we speak of ' a thousand head of cattle.' 

There is very little value in this enumeration of Pro- 

* P. 44. Quoted by Lerscb, iii. 94. 



256 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxi. 

clus's, for a cursory examination ^ shows that all the 
processes which he has separated, naturally fall under 
the three heads of — 1. Imitation, 2. Metaphor, and 
3. Antiphrasis, — with the exception of one or two (e.g. 
11. by modification, and 12. by ellipse) which beloog to 
formal etymology, and need no explanation, or further 
remark. His allusion, however, to the Historical origin 
of words (under which head fall 13. and 14. in the above 
list) is new and important, and on it is based the whole 
of that beautiful and valuable Science which has received 
of late the title of Linguistic Palaeontology. 

^ Lerscli, iii. 95. 



257 



CHAPTEE XXII. 



THE NATURE OF WOEDS. 



A6yos fiddvs KOL Airoppr^ros 6 irepl (pvcreus ovofxaroot/. 

Oeig. c. Cds. i. 24:. 

We have now advanced sufficiently far in our enquiry 
to be able to estimate more accurately the nature and 
import of Words. 

It was the endeavour to arrive at some secure con- 
clusion upon this subject which led to the constant and 
eager controversies on the origin of Language which 
occupied some of the clearest intellects among the 
Grreeks and Eomans. In the hands of the Gramma- 
rians the question degenerated from the high philoso- 
phical import which it had in the minds of the "ancient 
Philosophers; but in one form or other, with number- 
less modifications, it was a problem which occupied a 
thousand years of thought and argument. It is the one 
thread, which under various colours, runs through the 
whole history of Greek philology ^ from its dawn in the 
loftiest regions of metaphysical speculation to its decline 
into a dry and dusty register of grammatical forms and 
dialectic varieties. 

The nomenclature of the controversy, and with it the 
views of the combatants, shifted continually from age to 

* Lersch, Die Sjorack;phil. d. Alien, s. 2. 
S 



258 ON LA]S'GUAGE. ch. xxii. 

age; but amidst a crowd of differing terms the main 
fundamental question always was this. Did words origi- 
nate by Nature {(pvacs) or by Convention (6s(Tis,aw6i]fC7])? 
Was their form and significance determined by some in- 
ward necessity, or by mere arbitrary caprice? Have 
words any abstract propriety and fitness {opOorrjs), or 
are they merely invented anyhow and at haphazard? 
Is there in words any intrinsic force and meaning, or 
are they mere accidental labels stuck upon things which 
we wish to mention ? Is there any connection between 
names and things, or are names mere artificial counters 
used to assist our mental calculations ? 

Those who decided in favour of the first of these 
hypotheses — those who held that names existed by na- 
ture, and had a necessary and mystic connection with 
the things they signified — were called Analogists : — 
those who regarded words as mere conventional signs of 
our conceptions were called Anomalists. 

It was to be expected that the discussion of a subject 
which the Ancients had no means of deciding, and the 
use of watchwords and party cries ^ capable of such 
widely different acceptations as ^vaus and ^o/jlos, would 
lead to infinite confusions of thought, and would render 
it difficult in many cases to decide to which school any 
particular thinker really belonged. Moreover, our ma- 
terials for forming an opinion of what w^as really held 
by the great thinkers in the Grolden Age of G-reek Phi- 
losophy, are often to be derived from prolix commen- 
tators and puzzle-headed scholiasts. Heraclitus and 
Democritus were at opposite poles, yet if Democritus 

^ ' So wirken Sclilag-worter allemal um so veiter, je "vreniger sie rerstan- 
den werden ; und die Parteien zerfallen sobald sie sich ihr Schlagwort 
klax maolien wollen ! ' Steinthal, GrammatiJc, p. vii. 



CH. XXII. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 269 

called words ' sounding images' {ar^oKiiaTa (pcovrjsvTo) be 
used a phrase which Heraclitus himself might readily 
have adopted. Pythagoras is distinctly classed by Proclus 
among the Analogists, and by Ammonius no less clearly 
among the Anomalists. Epicurus, and his glorious ex- 
ponent Lucretius, attack Pythagoras ^ for believing in a 
Namegiver, and attribute language to the instincts of 
nature sharpened by the spur of necessity ; yet nothing 
can be more clear than that their viev/s were utterly at 
variance with the mystical conceptions of many other emi- 
nent Analogists. In Plato's great dialogue, the Gratylus, 
where this subject is treated, the difficulty of arriving at 
any clear conception of the view propounded is so great, 
that no two commentators have ever been found to agree 
in the exact interpretation of it. Instead therefore of 
entering into this war of words, and labyrinth of indis- 
tinct conceptions, it will be sufficient to contrast the 
assertions of one or two of the chief supporters of both 
schools, and see how far they contain any germ of truth ; 
for the problem, baldly stated, ^ Is Language due to 
Nature or to Convention?' is very nearly meaningless, 
and has no value as an intelligible formula. For con- 
vention requires discussion, agreement, concert; and as 
these are impossible without Language, we are at once 
involved in a. vicious circle. ^ The controversy had its 
root (as we see very distinctly from the Gratylus) in the 
opposition between the Ionic and Eleatic Schools of 

^ On this siibjeet. see Lersch, i. p. 25 ; Steinthal, GescMchte der 
Sprachwissenschaft, pp. 150-176. Lersch's book derives immense value 
from its rich collection of quotations from all the ancient philosophers 
and grammarians ; but it is eminently bewildering, and deficient in 
clearness and critical power. See Steinthal, Gesch. p. 74. 

2 See Herbart, Fsychol. § 130, quoted by Steinthal, GrammatiJc, 
p. 315. 

S 2 



260 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxii. 

Physiology,^ of which the former maintained the per- 
petual flux (7rdi>ra psl), and the latter the stability and 
reality of all things. In its ultimate consequences and 
developments it involves many of the most important 
questions in Theology, in Philosophy, and even in 
Science. But we need go no farther than the Cratylus 
to learn that there is in Language both a natural and a 
conventional element, and that (if we must use abstrac- 
tions) both the human understanding, and that myste- 
rious entity ^the nature of things,' contributed their 
respective quotas to the Laws and Forms ^f speech. 

Heraclitus, the very prince of all ancient philosophers, 
may be regarded as the father and founder of the Ana- 
logists. He held (if we may accept the flickering lamp 
of Ammonius as adequate to illuminate his proverbial 
darkness ^), that Names were the immediate product of 
a Natural power which assigned to each thing its proper 
designation as a necessary element of that thing's exist- 
ence, — the relation between the two being similar to 
that which exists between a sensation and the object 
which causes it.^ Names, he thought, were like the 
natural, not like the artificial images of visible things, 
i.e. the}'' resembled the shadows cast by solid objects, or 
the reflections in mirrors and on the surface of still 
water. "'Those who use the true word do really and 

^ Lerscli, i. 10^ 

2 'O ^Kor^ivos was Ms name even among the ancients ; yet the frag- 
ments of him which have eome down to us are luminous, naj radiant, 
with thought and meaning. His alleged obscurity, like that of Bishop 
Butler, must simply have arisen from the novelty and profundity of his 
speculations, not from any defects of expression or any intellectual 
vagueness. 

3 Such, we suppose, must he the meaning of the sentence, Sio-irep 
atcrOTjcnv cl\Xi/]v eTrt &\\ois tS>v aladvTuv dpu/xep TerayfMevrjv. Ammonius, 
ad Arist. de Interp\ p. 2-i, in Lersch, i. 12. 



I 



CH. xxir. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 261 

truly name the object, while those who do not, merely 
make an unintelligent noise. Hence the philosopher's 
object is to discover the true names which nature has 
assigned to things, just as it is the part of a keen 
observer to distinguish accurately the appearances of 
objects.' ^ Nothing then can be clearer than that Hera- 
clitus here enunciates the most absolute views of the 
Anal ogist school, — that Words are the immediate copies 
of Things, produced by Nature herself, not due to any 
subjective influence of human caprice, but correspond- 
ing to Eealities by an objective necessity. On this 
subject we shall have more to say hereafter. The Ana- 
logism of Epicurus was of a very different character; 
he too held that Words were a natural product, but by 
'Nature' he only meant a physical organic necessity, — 
which is a very low and onesided view of Language, 
even when invested with poetic colours in the orgiastic 
and splendid verse of Lucretius, or arrayed in some 
shadow of scientific authority in more modern writers.^ 
Democritus, that Fichte of the ancients, held an 
opinion the direct reverse of that propounded by Hera- 
clitus. He referred everything to opinion, and custom; 
— with him even the experience of the Senses ^ was but 
a reflex of established prejudices, and Speech the mere 
result of arbitrary human agreement I Nay, he not 
only asserted this, but he tried, according to Proclus,'* to 
prove it by four philological arguments ; viz. 1. By the 
existence of Homonyms, or identical words for different 

^ Ammonius, L c. 

^ E. g. in Becker's Organism, der SpracAe. 

Democr. de Anim. Vide Lersch, i. 13. 

* Proclus, Schol. in Plat. Cratylics, p. 6. Id. 



262 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xxii. 

objects, as, for instance, k\sls to mean both a key and a 
collarbone; 2. By Polyonymy, or the existence of dif- 
ferent synonyms for the same object, as avOpwiros, M^po"^> 
and ^poTos, for 'man;' 3. By the possibility of changing 
a proper name; for if names corresponded to some 
inward characteristic, we could not change a man's 
name ^ from Aristocles to Plato, or from Tyrannion to 
Theophrastus ; 4. By the accidental absence of some 
words formed ;analogously to others ; e.g. we have <f)po- 
vsLv from (^povrjcris, but no similar verb from SiKaioavvrj. 
Few Heracliteans, we suppose, would be appalled by 
the production of such raw arguments as these, even 
when they received a practical illustration from the 
Megarian Diodorus, who called one of his slaves ^But 
in truth' {aXXA p^rjv), and another by some other con- 
junction, to show that in Language Use is the only 
important principle, and that no word has any other 
meaning than the one which you may choose to attach 
to it! Still, the Analogists had equally little in the 
way of argument to produce on their own side. Hera- 
clitus held that the Study of Words was a direct road 
to the discovery of abstract truth,^ but there is little 
enough of truth, abstract or otherwise, in the Etymolo- 
gies which occupied the attention of his followers; and 
as for the attempts of the grammarian Nigidius^ to 
support them by arguing that when we say the word 
Yos we indicate by the movement and protrusion of the 

1 Hermogenes in Plato's Cratylus illustrates this by the constant 
changing of slaves' names. Cratyl. p. 384. 

2 'E^a£peT($j/ ^aai tov 'KpaKXeireiov didacTKaXdov r^v Sia tuv ovofxdrav 
iir\ rijv rwu ovtwv yvwaiv oSoV. Proclns in Parnienid. i. 12. ' Qui 
imagines rerum in verbis sic ut in cera expressas putarent.' Lobeck, 
Aglaojpham. ii. 871. 

" Quoted by Aul. Gellius. x. 4. 



CH. XXII. THE I^ATURE OF WORDS. 263 

lips the persons to whom we are speaking, whereas when 
we say Nos we draw in the breath and the lips, — the 
less we say about them the better ! They belong to an 
infinitely worse form of hypothesis than that already 
quoted from St. Augustine ; they are far more futile 
than the attempts which have amused so many writers, 
from Plato down to Dr. Wienbarg and Mr. D'Arcy 
Thompson, to discover the distinct psj^chology and phy- 
siognomy of particular alphabetic letters.^ 

But the Analogists were less guided by definite argu- 
ments than by deep m3"sterious convictions. They ap- 
pealed to the names of the gods, as being peculiar and 
appropriate, because they were felt to be too sacred to 
admit of being changed.'^ They called attention to the 
effects of blessing and cursing, which, they argued, could 
not be mere arbitrary words, because they often worked 
their own achievement, and possessed an inherent power,^ 
which proves that Speech binds together G-od and Man, 
Heaven and earth, words and things in a common band 
of thought. 

The very universality of such views as these among 
nations in the most various stages of culture, and men 
of the most different capacities, — the fact that they have 
been held alike by Jews and Gre utiles, by savages and 
philosophers, by the abjectly superstitious and the pro- 

^ Every one knows what Plato makes out of the letters R and L. 
Cratylus, p. 424 s^g-g'. Moritz Drechsler occupied an entire book with 
the letter M {Grundhgung zur wissenschaftHchen Konstrnktion, &c. 
Erlangen, 1830); and in Mr. D. Thompson's Day-dreams of a School- 
\^ master we find traced the villanous lineaments and character of the 
letter K. Dr. Wienbarg in his curious little book, Das Gekcimniss des 
Wortes, p. iv., says that he has listened diligently to 'the sylphlike 
waving and whispering of the letter-spirits.' 

2 Iambi, de Mysteriis, vii. 5. Lersch, i. 43. 

' Ammonius. Id. ih. 



264 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxtt. 

foundly learned, — shows that they must rest upon some 
principle, or at any rate must deserve a careful exami- 
nation. It must not be supposed that the enquiry has 
now become a mere meaningless anachronism. On the 
contrary, it lies at the root of many widely-reaching 
controversies. On it, for instance, ultimately turns the 
long dispute between the Eealists and the iN'ominalists. 
St. Anselm declared that unless the abstract man were 
a reality, unless man, the idea which objectively corre- 
sponds to the word ' man,' had an actual independent 
existence,^ the doctrine of the Incarnation could not be 
true. On the other hand, Fichte's singularly crude and 
unconditional acceptance of the theory which deprived 
names of all but a purely conventional value, ^ was a 
direct result of his subjective idealism. To this day the 
disputes which gather round the meanings of general 
terms both in Science and Theology are largely modi- 
fied by the influence of some, often unconscious, theory 
respecting the nature of words. 

It is then very important to try and illustrate what 
the most advanced Analogists held on this subject, and 
thereby to arrive at some point from which we can 
criticise their opinions. 

The early Jews seem to have held the views of the 
Analogists in their extremest form. We do not indeed 
find the doctrine stated by them in so many words, the 
nearest approach to such a statement being a verse of 
questionable authenticity in the book of Ecclesiasticus 
(xvii. 5), 'in the sixth place he imparted them Under- 
standing, and in the seventh Speech an interpreter of 
the cogitations thereof,' where Language is described as 

^ Hampden, Bcrmpton Lectures, p. 478. 

2 Von der Sj^rachfahigkeit^ Sdmmtl. WerJcen, 8. Heyse, s. 57. 



CH. XXII. THE MATURE OF WORDS. 265 

a divinely-created sense. But we find throughout the 
Bible so vast an importance attached to the mere phy- 
siological quality of certain sounds, — so solemn a method 
of inference from mere names and words, — as to leave 
no doubt respecting the views which suggested such a 
method of enquiry and illustration. No doubt the con- 
stant Paronomasise or plays on words which occur in the 
sacred writers may be due in part to the pleasure which 
all people, and the Orientals especially, seem to derive 
from the assonance of different parts of a sentence,^ — 
a pleasure which, combined with the tendency to Pleo- 
nasms found in all earl}^ tongues, lies at the bottom of 
that whole system of Parallelism in which Hebrew 
poetry consists. But as similar alliterations and Par- 
onomasise are most frequent at that earliest stage of lan- 
guage when the meaning of words is freshest, brightest, 
and least conventional, we must consider them as partly 
due to some vague belief in the inherent affinities of 
words. Thus in the very second verse of Genesis we 

^ The Arabic names Harat and Marut, Abel and Kabel (Cain and 
Abel), Dalut and Gr'ialut (David and Groliath) ; compare Kophy and 
Mophy in Hei'od. &c. In the Bible we bare Huz and Bnz, &c. A 
.Hindoo constantly adds meaningless rhymes even to English words, and 
will talk of a button-bitten, kettley-bittley, &c. But a sort of TrapTjx'Jo'ts 
is used, and used with admirable effect by the very best writers, as in 
the New Testament, iropveia Trourjpia, (j)d6poL (p6voi (Rom. i. 29, 31), 
aavveTws (KTvvQ^Tws, Kpiveis KaraKpij/eis, &c. ; in the Prayer-book holy, 
wholly, giving and forgiving, changes and chances, &c. These asso- 
nances, which are common in Cicero and Sallust, are the special delight of 
St, Augustine. In poetry too they are frequent : — alcrx^f^ofjiai, aXjvvojxai, 
Eur. Apprehends and comprehends, Shakesp. Mids. Nighfs Bream. 
Sorted and consorted, Love's Lab. lost. ' Sly slow hours,' Bom. and, 
Jul. 'Is every breath, a death,' AlVs well, S,~c. ' Actions and exactions,' 
Daniel. * Fear the fierceness of the boy,' Beaum. and Fletch. ' Shqill, 
chiU with flakes of foam,' &c. Tennyson. To enter fully into this subject 
would be to write a book on Rhyme, its origin, the source of its pleasxir- 
ableness, &c. 



266 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xxii. 

find the words Tohoo vabohoo as a description of the 
primal chaos ; and similar instances may be found in 
Job XXX. 19, Is. liv. 8, Ps. xviii. 8,^ &c., degenerating in 
Judg. XV. 16, and in the apocryphal story of Susannah, 
into mere puns,^ and rising in Is. v. 7 into very beautiful 
and pathetic force. Perhaps the best instance to prove 
that a distinct importance was attached to the mere 
sound is to be found in the vision of Jer. i. 11, 12, where 
the Lord says, * Jeremiah, what seest thou ? And I said, 
I see a rod of an almiond tree. Then said the Lord unto 
me. Thou hast well seen : for I will hasten my word to 
perform it.' In this remarkable passage it is clear that 
the symbolic vision derives no small part of its force, if 
not its whole basis, from the similar sound and deriva- 
tion of the two words Shakeed ' an almond tree ' and 
Shdkad ' to hasten.' Even this, strange as it may seem 
to us, is not a singular instance. In Amos (viii. 1, 2) — 
' Amos, what seest thou ? And I said, A basket of 
summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me. The end 
is come upon my people,' — an important clue to the 
meaning lies in the similarity between Kaytz 'fruit,' 
and Kehtz ' an end,' both which words have the imita- 
tive origin Katsatz to cut (cf. Ezek. vii. 6). Even in 
Dan. V. 28 there is evidently a play on Peres and the 
Hebrew Paras a Persian ; and, to take an instance still 
more important, the title Nazarene, as given to our 
Lord, and referred to by St. Matthew as having fulfilled 
an ancient prophecy, seems to find its sole explanation 
in the similarity of the word Nazarene to Netzer 'a 

' See Glass. FMlol. Sacr. p. 951. 

2 In the story of Su.sannah the pun rests on tlie similarity of (Tjo^os 
a ma stick-tree, and crxiaai to cleanse ; irplvos a holm-oak, and irpia-cu 
to saw asunder ; Luther admirably renders the pun by the words Linden 
finden, and Eiclien, zeichen. 



CH. XXII. THE IS-ATUKE OF WORDS. 267 

branch,' a title given to our Lord in Is. xi. 1. It seems 
nearly certain, if I may quote what I have said else- 
where,^ that ' St. Matthew, well aware of the importance 
attached by Orientals generally, and the sacred writers 
in particular, to the mere quantity of certain sounds as 
connecting them with other sounds expressive of dif- 
ferent conceptions, . . . may have been led to suppose 
that this passage in Isaiah bore out his general reference 
to the prophets, and indicated the fact which he nar- 
rates.' It is extremely probable that by bearing these 
views of language in mind we may throw great light on 
St. Paul's difficult expression, ' For this Agar is Mount 
Sinai in Arabia,'— since Agar means a rock, and was 
probably a local name for the Arabian mountain. 

It is however in the method of treating proper names 
that the belief in their absolute significance is most 
clearly shown. The Jews seem to have held to the full 
that ' imago animi, vitse, vultus nomen est.' ^ The name 
was, according to Hebrew and Eastern writers in general, 
an integral part of the object itself; it was not deemed 
indifferent ; it was no conventional sign ; it was an es- 
sential attribute.'"^ Hence we have no less than fifty 
etymologies in the Book of Genesis alone, and in almost 
every one of these instances the derivation connects the 
name, prophetically or otherwise, with some event in 
the person's life. It would howeve.r be an error to re- 
gard these as always meant for mere etymologies; indeed 
as such they are in many cases scientifically untenable. 
Even in Gren. ii. 23, Isshah 'w^oman' cannot be derived 



1 Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. Eiddle, where numerous other instances 
are given, the number of which might easily be doubled. 

2 Kalisch, Genesis, p. 114. Hiller, Onomasticon, p. 950. Ewald, 
Proph. d. alien Bundes, i. 18. * 



268 o:^^ language. 



n/ IVI 



nor can Noah be derived from iVa- 
iam ^ to comfort ' in Gen. v. 29 ; nor again, since 
Moses is an Egyptian name (Ex. ii. 10, cf. Gen. xli. 45), 
can it be possibly derived from the Hebrew MdsJiah 
' he saved.' 2 These instances, and they might be largely 
multiplied, show that in many cases the inferences 
drawn from names in the Bible are not intended as 
etymologies, but are adduced to illustrate the mystic 
relations of words, and to represent certain facts and 
influences in the lives of those who bore them. For to 
the Oriental every word appeared to have in itself a 
divine primeval character, and to retain some fragment 
of the creative breath.^ It is well worth our enquiry 
whether there is not a still earlier instance of this view 
in the explanation of the name Adam ? To suppose 
that it is derived from Adamah ' earth ' is philologi- 
cally difficult, if not impossible; and both words are 
probably connected with adam ' he was red,' ^ — red 
being the colour by which the Semitic race is depicted 

* ' The similarity of tlie sound only could have been alluded to, and 
by no means the derivation of the word.' Mason and Bernard, Hebr, 
Gram, i. 122. See, however, on the other side, Ewald, Hebr. Gram. 
i. 318 ; Kahsch, Genesis, p. 116. Gesenius {Thes. i. 87) says that the de- 
rivation, ' quamvis non satis accurata, tamen scriptori sacro notatu digna 
videbatur.' 

2 Accordingly Josephus says, Antt. ii. 9, 6, rb yap vSwp fiw ol Alyvirrioi 
KoKovffiv, vcrris Se rovs e^ i/Saros aoiQivTas. On Noah, Mr. J. Perowne 
saj's, 'It is quite plain that the name "rest" and the verb "comfort" 
are of different roots ; and we must not try to make a philologist of 
Lamech, and suppose that he was gi\ing an accurate derivation of the 
name Noah. He merely plays upon the name after a fashion common 
enough in all ages and countries.' Diet, of the Bible, s. v. 

^ Wienbarg, Das Geheimniss des Wortes, p. viii. 

* See Jos. Antt. i. 1, 2 ; Leuden, Onomast. s. v. Adam. The Indians 
have a tradition that man was made out of red clay ; the Chinese say 
that it was yellow clay, • 



CH. XXII. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 269 

on the Egyptian monuments. We may then accept 
Gen. ii. 7 as one of those instances in which the name 
serves to remind the writer of some cognate or similar 
word,^ which naturally suggested the same conclusion 
as that drawn by the Grreeks from the similarity of 
Xaay ^ a stone,' and Xaos ' people,' ^ and by the Eomans 
from the resemblance of 'homo' and ' humus.' In this 
way at any rate we remove, for those who feel it, the 
difficulty (!) arising from the fact that the ultimate 
constituents of man's body are not dust and clay, but 
albumen, phosphate of lime, fat, hsematin, and many 
chemical ingredients. 

There are fifty of these allusive applications of names 
in the book of Grenesis alone, and the instances of Isaac, 
Jacob, Seth, Esau, Edom, Judah,Gad, Dai), Peleg, Shem, 
Japheth, will at once occur to the reader's mind. In 
some instances, as those of Eve, Abel, Noah, Nabal, 
Solomon, the name was clearly supposed to have a pro- 
phetic character.^ Even in the New Testament we find 



* This mode of treating words is not uncomnaon ; many etymologies 
of the ancients which sound .so absurd to us were not always meant for 
'etymologies' in the strict sense, but for allegorical interpretations, or 
sometimes even for a mere memoria technica: — as when the Roman 
Jurisconsults derive 'mutuus' '■quod ex meo tuvmfiat,'' and tastamentum 
from testatio mentis; or as when the Fathers connect 'Paschal' and 
irdaxeiv, or the Pythagoreans forbade the use of peas and beans {xdOvpoi, 
epe^LvOoi) because they were X'fi6r)s Kal epe^ovs Tvapuwixa; or the Stoics 
derive Ovfiiafia from Ovfiov 'icf.fjia, and Solcecism from coov Xoyov aluLcrixov, 
&e, Lobeck, Aglaophavi. p. 869. 

2 There is possibly an allusion to this in Homer's play upon Xomvs 
and Xidovs. Comp. Pind. 0. ix. 66. 

' The ancients noticed the same fact in the name Hippolytus, &c. 
' Protesilae, tibi nomen sic fata dederunt, 
Victima quod Trojse prima fiiturus eras. 
Idmona quod vatem, medicum quod lapida dicunt, 

Discendas artes nomina praeveninnt.' Auson. E'p. xx. 



270 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xxir. 

our Lord himself in a solemn moment fixing on the 
mind of his greatest Apostle a new and solemn signifi- 
cance given to the name be bore. ' Thou art Peter, and 
on this rock will I build my Church.' ^ St. Paul also is 
probably playing upon a name when, in Phil. iv. 3, he 
affectionately addresses a friend as fyvrjaLs Xv^tr/s, ' true 
yokefellow/ — since it is an ancient and very probable 
supposition that Syzygus or Yokefellow is there a proper 
name. 

So deep was the sacredness attached to names that 
the great ebbs and flows in the tide of Jewish thought ^ 
may be traced by a diligent study of the names they 
adopted.. Hence too their practice, under certain grave 
conditions, of changing men's names, — a practice which 
is strikingly illustrated in the histories of Abraham, 
Sarah, Jacob, Benjamin, Joshua, and Gideon. ' Call 
me not Naomi (pleasant), but Mara (bitter),' said the 
broken-hearted widow of Elimelech. In later times 
we find the name of Pashur indignantly changed by 
Jeremiah into Magor-missabib, i.e. ' terror on every 
side' (Jer. xx. 3 10), but no ingenuity has yet been able 
decisively to state why the name of Saul of Tarsus was, 
after his conversion, changed to Paul. 



^ * Among the Hebrews even anagrams formed a part of the caibbalistic 
science, and afforded a clue to the discovery of those mysterious oracles 
which it was imagined the Almighty in his wisdom had connected with 
the giving of proper names.' Salverte, i. 12. One or two astonishing in- 
stances (Sheshach, &c.) from the two modes of interpretation called 
Athbash and Grammateia might be adduced. The belief in the signi- 
ficance of anagrams lasted till a very late period. The series of miracles 
connected with the 'garnet ears' of wheat were suggested from the fact 
that the letters of Pater Henricus Garnetius (hanged for complicity in 
the Gunpowder Plot, 1606) form the words 'pingere cruentus arista.' 

2 See Ewald's article on Names in Kitto's Cyclo'p. 



CH. XXII. THE NATURE OP WORDS. 271 

In one of the Chaldean oracles of Zoroaster we find 
the rule — 

'OuSfxaTa ^apfiapa fxi] ttot aXKa^rjs, 
elal yap ovS/xara Trap' iKacrroLS deoadora 
^vpafXLV kv T€\€rais 'dppr}TOi/ e;^oz/Ta.' 

The, Jews, however, did not share this reverence for 
barbarous or foreign names ; on the contrary, their 
' contumelia numinum ' ^ was proverbial among the 
ancients and made them deeply unpopular. This was 
why they changed Bethel ' the house of Grod ' into 
Bethaven ^ the house of vanity ; ' Beelzebul ' Lord of 
heaven' into Beelzebub '^the Lord of filth;' Kir Heres 
' the city of the Sun ' into Kir Cheres ' the city of de- 
struction ; ' Har Hamischah ^ the mount of olives ' into 
Har Hamaschith ' the mount of corruption ; ' ^ Jerub- 
baal and Meribbaal into Jerubbesheth and Mephibo- 
sheth, where Baal ' Lord ' is altered into Bosheth 
' shame.' This custom may very possibly have been 
confirmed in the Jews by a literal acceptation of Exod. 
xxiii. LS, ' Make no Tnention of the name of other gods, 
neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.' It was how- 
ever equally common in the case of men ; thus Achan 
was changed to Achor or * trouble,' and the impostor 
Barchocebas ^ the son of a star ' was called Barchozibas 
' the son of a lie.' ^ 

Much of this notion respecting the intrinsic signifi- 
cance of names ^ rose from the belief that Language 

^ Cory, Ancient Fragments, p, 271. 

2 Plin. xiii. 9. Winer, Bibl. Realworterh.^a. v. Gotteslasterung . 
^ Seidell, de Diis Syr. Syntagm. 2, p. 211. I am aware that nearly 
all these instances are strongly disputed. 

* Salverte {History of Names, p. 12, ed. Mordacque) gives a Persian 
instance. 

* Philo speaks of the natural power of words. See Bochart, Hierozoi- 



272 0]S^ LANGUAGE. ch. xxii. 

was divinely inspired, and the result of Adam's incom- 
parable wisdom. According to the Cabbalists Adam 
was taught by the Angel Eaziel, and received a celestial 
alphabet ; according to others his teacher was a certain 
Somboscer. Clemens Alexandrinus ^ distinctly attri- 
butes his power of naming the animals to a prophetic 
gift, and St. Chrysostom^ took it as a proof of consum- 
mate intelligence. The phrase ' that was the name 
thereof implied, says Eusebius,^ that the name had an 
intrinsic and natural meaning. ' God called the light 
day, and the darkness he called night,' says Theophilus/ 
'since man would not have been able to name these 
things, nor indeed anything else, if he had not received 
their designation from the G-od who created them.' 
The same views are still held by many, perhaps by the 
majority. 'Adam,' says South in his sermon on the 
State of Man before the Fall, ' came into the world a 
philosopher, which sufficiently appears hy his writing 
the natvLve of things upon their names.'' It is a curious 
and significant fact that we find the very same con- 
ception among the Chinese, who say that Fohi per- 
formed his duty of nomenclature so well 'that by 
naming the things their very nature was made known.' ^ 
All that we have said about the Jews finds its parallel 
in the literature of the Greeks and Eomans. All the 
Epic poets from Horner^ downwards, all the Lyric poets 
beginning with Pindar,^ all the tragedians — the pro- 
cow, Yol. i. p. 58 ; Heidegger, Hist. Fair. p. 37, &c. Some of the views 
of the Rabbi and Fathers •are quoted by Michaeler, Be Orig. Lingua, 
pp. 167-196. 

1 Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 335. ^ Chrys. Horn. XIV. in Gen. 

^ Euseb. Brcep. Evang. xi. 6. "* Theoph. ad Autolyc. ii. 18. 

^ Chou-king, Dissert. Frelim. p. 84. '^ Pind. Nem. yii. 42. 
' « On the name Odysseus, Od. i. 20, 



CH. XXII. THE NATURE OP WORDS. 273 

found and majestic ^schylus no less than the tender 
realistic Euripides, — nay even the orators,^ who spoke 
for the people, resort to these plays on words, and 
especially on names, as a necessary ornament of their 
style. No doubt with some of them it became a mere 
trick of rhetoric,^ a mere dcrrsLorrjs capable of being 
reduced to definite rules; but with men like Homer, 
Pindar, and ^schylus it was regarded in a far different 
light. Throughout the whole of Grrecian Antiquity 
reigned the popular belief that there existed a necessary 
mysterious connection between words and the objects 
signified by them, so that man unconsciously, as though 
under the guidance of a higher Power, expressed, in 
the words whereby he named things or persons, their 
innermost being and future destiny as though in a 
symbol incomprehensible even to himself.^ If the com- 
mentators had understood this tendency they might have 
saved themselves their bursts of indignation against 
these ' putida et frigida etymologia, et tragica digni- 
• tate aliena.'"^ We think the pun on a man's name the 
lowest kind of wit, but assuredly it was no intention to 

* Chiefly however in jest, as Conon played on the name Thrasybulus ; 
and Herodicus on the names Thrasymachus, and Polus, and Draco, say- 
ing that the laws of the latter were the laws of a Dragon. Herodotus 
(vi. 50) records the joke of Cleomenes on the name Krius (ram). Cicero 
is particularly full of these jokes, playing on the name Verres (boar-pig) 
with constant delight, as well as on the name Chrysogonus, &c. When 
Philippus, punning on the name Catulus, exclaimed ' Quid latras, Catule ?' 
the happy answer was ' Furem video.' Quinct. vi. 3. 

2 See Arist. Ehet. ii. 23. 

' Schwable in Stein thai, Gesch. d. Sprach. s. 17. 

* Such a play on words seems to have acted like a red rag on com- 
mentators, from whom a curious florilegium might be gathered of vitu- 
perative phrases against this ' ludicra dicendi ratio,' 'illepida carminis 
forma,' 'argutise,' &c. Quinctilian leads the way with his 'frigidum 
sane.' Instt. Or. v. 10. 

T 



274 0^ LAl^GUAGE. ch. xxii. 

be witty which led ^schylus to spend twelve bitter 
lines of a splendid and passionate chorus in denouncing 

Sweet Helen 
Hell in her name, but heaven m her looks; ^ 

nor did he imagine himself to be comic when he makes 
Cassandra in the mid screams of her heart-shaking 
prophetic frenzy play on the meanings of the names 
Apollo and Aguieus.^ Nor again would Sophocles have 
admitted the charge of bad taste for beginning the 
tragic denunciation of Pyrrhus by Philoctetes with the 
terrible paronomasia, 

*X1 irvp (TV kolL irav SeT/ia.^ 

in all probability both he and his predecessor believed 
profoundly in the science of Onomantia. ' Modern trans- 
lators have often tried to apologise for what might seem 
an unwarrantable play upon words, but no apology was 
needed in a city where to commemorate the self- 
sacrifice and courageous heroism of Leaena the inha- 
bitants themselves had erected the bronze figure of a 
lioness.' JS'or, it may be added, would such a method 
of treating names be considered unimportant among a 
nation whose chiefs were persuaded to a most important 
military enterprise by the accidental omen in the name 

^ 'EAeVrj eXiyas, eXavBpas lAeVroAis. ^Esch. Aff. 689. See on this 
subject, Salverte, i. 37. The English hnes are from Peele's Edward I. 

2 Ag. 1040, 1049. In JEschylus -we also find these paronomasias on 
Epaphus {Prom. 875), on the river Hybristes {Id. 742), on lo {Id. 718), 
on Prometheus {Id. 86), &c. Sophocles has them on Ajax, Sidero, and 
Polynices ; Euripides on Theoclymene, Theonoe, Thoas, Meleager, 
Aphrodite, &c.; Theocritus on Pentheus (xxvi. 26), &c. 

^ Any one who wishes to see the instances collected may consult 
Lersch, iii. 11-17; Sturz, Opuscc.T^. 78, Be Nominihus Orcecis; Meineke, 
ad Euphor. p. 128; Elmsley, Bacch. 508; Creuzer, de Arte Hist. Grcsc. 
p. 52; Eost, ad Phosn. 639, &c. 



CH. XXII. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 275 

of an envoy who was called ' Hegesistratus ' or ' leader 
of an army.' ^ 

The same feelings profoundly actuated the Eomans. 
They would all have echoed the language of Ausonius 
{Ep. XX.) : 

Nam diviuare est nomen componere, quod sit 
Fortunse, morum, vel necis indicium. 

In their levies, Cicero informs us, they took care to 
enrol first such names as Victor, and Felix, and Faustus, 
and Secundus; and were anxious to head the roll of 
the census with a word of such happy augury as Salvius 
Valerius. Caesar gave a command in Spain to an 
obscure Scipio simply for the sake of the omen which 
his name involved. Scipio upbraids his mutinous 
soldiers with having followed to the field an Atrius 
Umber a *dux abominandi nominis' (Liv. xxviii. 28), 
being, as De Quincey calls him, a ^pleonasm of darkness.' 
The Emperor Severus consoled himself on the im- 
moralities of his Empress Julia, because she bore the 
same name as the profligate daughter of Augustus. To 
come down to later times, Adrian VI. when he became 
Pope wished to retain his own name, but was prevented 
from doing so on being informed by his cardinals that 
all the Popes who had done so, had died in the first 
year of their reign.^ 

In almost every other national literature, and that 
not in consequence of a mere desire to imitate the 
ancients, but from an outgrowth of the same feelings 
which animated them, we find examples of the same 

» See Herod, ix. 91. Grvote, v. 259. 

2 Mervoyer, J^t sur V Assoc. d'Idees, p. 376. As bearing on the same 
subject I may refer to a paper of mine on Curious Predictions in ' the 
Museum.' 

t 2 



276 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxii. 

belief in the independent value of words and names. 
In Shakspeare the play upon names is often introduced 
in some of the most thrilling passages; — as in Cym- 
heline (v. 5): — 

Thou Leonatiis art the lion's whelp 

The fit and apt construction of thy name ; 

Being Leo-natics doth import so much ; 

and in King John, Constance even in the transport of 
her anguish exclaims (iii. 1): — 

la\rful let it be, 
That I have room with Eome to curse awhile ; 

and in As You Like it Claudio breaks forth with — 

Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been 

If half thy outward graces had been placed 

About thy thoughts, and counsels of thy heart ; 

and once more in Richard II., ii. 2, John of G-aunt 
replies to the King's address, — 

Old Gaunt indeed and gaunt in being old ; . . . 
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave 
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones ; 

upon which the King asks in surprise, — 

Can sick men play so nicely with their -names ? 
and Graunt gives this very striking answer : — 

No ! Misery makes sport to mock herself.^ 

Poets of undeniable taste have continued the process ^ 

' ' God forgive me for making such bad puns,' writes Sir "W. Napier 
in one of his indignant letters, ' but a hitter feeling sometimes turns to 
humour to avoid cursing.^ Life of Sir W. Napier, ii, 241. 

"^ All our earlier and Elizabethan writers supply similar instances. 
Thus in the comedy oi Patient Grissel we have Furio thus addressed: 
' When thou com'st to her rough amd furioics 
I pray thee on thy life be Hike thy name ;' 
iind in Decker 

* Thy name is Angelo 
And like that name thou art.' 



CH. XXII. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 277 

down to the most recent times. Cowper says of the 
poet Bloomfield — 

'While fields shall bloom thy name shall live ;^ 

and even Wordsworth beo^ins his touching lines to the 
memory of Charles Lamb with the allusion — 

From the most gentle creatiire born in fields 
Had been derived the name he bore, — a name 
Hallowed to meekness and to innocence. 

The changes of name for purposes of scorn, com- 
pliment, or memorial are also common in all periods 
of history. The Athenians were christened by their 
enemies G-apenians (Ks^^T^z/atot) ; Demosthenes sneers 
at ^schines for changing Tromes and Emprisa, his 
parents' names, into Atrometus and Griaucothea ; Chry- 
sippus received the contemptuous appellation Chesip- 
pus ; Antiochus Epiphanes was changed by the angry 
Jews into Epimanes ; Tiberius Claudius Nero from his 
drunkenness was nicknamed Biberius Caldius Mero ; 
^tius, not without a reference to his name, was called 
"Adsos,'^ and the Arians were nicknamed Ariomanites. 
Jerome changed the name of his adversary Yigilantius 
into Dormitantius ; the original name of Servius II. 
was Groin, and this was the reason why he first of those 
who assumed the tiara changed his name ; Louis XL 
altered the name of his barber Olivier le Diable, first 
into Olivier le Mauvais, then to 0. le Malin, and then 
into 0. le Daim, and by a public decree forbade either 
of his former names to be mentioned;^ Maria Theresa 
on the other hand called her minister Thunichtgut by 



^ He has a similar play on the name Edgeworth. 

2 G-ieseler, Church History, i. 329, Engl tr. 

^ P. Mervoyer, £t. sur V Association d'Idees, p. 377. 



278 ON LANGUAGE. ch. xxii. 

the much more promising title of Thugut. Salverte 
tells a story of a Delaware chief, who being accustomed 
only to names that had a real reference, asked the 
meaning of Colonel Sprout's name. ' The colonel was a 
man of remarkable size. The chief was told that the 
name meant " a shoot." *^ No," he said, " he cannot be 
the shoot, he is the tree itself." ' He could not con- 
ceive the existence of a name which was not significant. 
The universal prevalence of Euphemism as a prin- 
ciple of language is due to a belief in the mystic power 
of words to work their own fulfilment, as one of the 
laws of destiny.^ It is hardly necessary to refer to the 
familiar instances of the Erinyes called Eumenides, or 
' the gentle ones,' of Epidamnus changed into Dyrrha- 
chium, Axeinos into Euxine, Maleventum into Bene- 
ventum, Egesta into Segesta, or Capo Tormentoso into 
Cape of Good Hope. ' These omens derived from 
names,' says J)e Quincey,^ ^ are common to the ancient 
and modern world. But perhaps they ought to be 
classed under a much larger head, viz. words, gene- 
rally, no matter whether proper names or appellatives, 
viewed as operative powers and agencies, bearing, that 
is to say, a charmed power against some party con- 
cerned from the moment that they leave the lips.* 
After mentioning the utter avoidance of all direct 
mention of death, he continues, ' G-ood taste is not in 
itself sufficient to account for a scrupulousness so 
general and so austere. . . . This timidity arises from 

^ See Disraeli, Curios, of Lit. ii. 62, Mill's Logic, ii. 30. The mere 
euphonic changes of name are of course quite different ; such as Diodes 
into Diocletian, De la Borgne to Strabo, Charpentier to Fabricius, 
Schwartzerd to Melanchthon, &c. 

2 De Quincey's Modern Su;perstitions, "Works, iii. 303 (Black's ed.). 



CH. XXII. THE K'ATURE OF WORDS. 279 

the old superstition still lingering amongst men. . . . 
No progressive knowledge will ever medicine that 
dread misgiving of a mysterious and pathless power 
given to words of a certain import, or uttered in certain 
situations, by a parent for instance to persecuting or 
insulting children ; ^ by the victim of horrible oppres- 
sion when labouring in final agonies ; and by others, 
whether cursing or blessing, who stand central to great 
passions, to great blessings, or to great perplexities. 
And here, by way of parenthesis, I might stop to at- 
tempt an explanation of the force attached to that 
Scriptural expression " Thou hast said iV It is an 
answer adopted by our Saviour, and the meaning seems 
radically to be this,^ — the popular belief authorised the 
notion that simply to have uttered any great thesis, 
though unconsciously, — simply to have united verbally 
any two great ideas, though for a purpose the most 
different or even opposite, had the mysterious power of 
realising them in act. . . . An exclamation, though in 
the purest spirit of sport, addressed to a boy, " You 
shall be our Imperator,''' ^ was many times supposed 
to be the forerunner and fatal mandate for the boy's 
elevation. Words that were blind, and words that were 
torn from frantic depths of anguish, oftentimes, it was 
thought, executed themselves. To connect, though but 
for denial or for mockery, the ideas of Jesus and the 
Messiah, furnished an augury of their eventual coinci- 

* Jacob's deathbed prophecy, turning as it mainly does on the signifi- 
cance of names, will at once occur to the reader. 

2 By quoting this explanation for the sake of the thoughts which it 
inyolves, I do not mean to endorse its truth. That it does express the 
Jewish conception is illustrated by their belief in the famous Bath Kol. 

^ Such stories are told of Galba, and of our own Henry VII. among 
others. 



280 OJs" LANGUAGE. ch. xxii. 

dence. It was an argumentum ad hominem, and 
drawn from a popular faith.' ^ 

Undoubtedly hundreds of instances might be adduced 
in which chance words have seemed to become living 
powers effectual for evil or for good. It is easy to ex- 
plain this on the hypothesis of accidental coincidences ; 
but the explanation has never carried conviction to the 
popular instinct, and there can be little doubt that this 
dark ominousness of words — their apparent power of 
meeting with malignant exterior influences, and coope- 
rating with them for evil — has been one great ground 
for the views of the Analogists as to their inherent 
force. Again, there are words in all languages which 
appear to have been directly created, to have issued 
direct from the human mind. For, says M. Victor 
Hugo, ^it is the mystery of language to paint with 
words which have, we know not how or why, faces. 
This is the primitive foundation of every human lan- 
guage, or what might be called the granite. Slang 
swarms with words of this nature, words created all of 
one piece, it is impossible to say when or by whom, 
without etymologies, analogies, or derivatives — solitary, 
barbarous, and at times hideous words which have a 
singular power of expression, and are alive. The exe- 
cutioner, le taule ; forest le sabri ; fear taf ; the devil 
le rahouin. . . . They form transparent masks, gro- 
tesque and terrible like a Cyclopean grimace.' Ad- 
miring the rare eloquence of this passage, we must 
reject its assertion that words are ever thus created. 
Their origin may be forgotten, but assuredly there was 

^ De Quinoey quotes as anotlier instance of stray words taking effect, 
and becoming fruitful of consequences, the answer of the impatient 
Pythia to Alexander the Great, S) irai aviKarhs eT. 



CH. XXII. Ttii^ JSATURE OF WOEDS. 281 

always a definite and intelligible motive for tlie forms 
they assume. Na}^ even the instances which M. Victor 
Hugo selects are easily explicable. ' Taule ' is derived 
from ' tollere,' the cry of ' tolle, toUe ' being frequent 
in an old passion-play. Sabri is very possibly a mere 
metathesis for arhres. Taf ^ is a pure onomatopoeia from 
a French proverb in which tif-taf is used like our own 
expression ' my heart w^ent pit-a-pat.' Lastly rabouin 
is from the Spanish rabo ' a tail,' and means the per- 
sonage with a tail ; and M. Michel, from whose phi- 
lological study of the Argot we borrow these derivations, 
thinks that the medieval belief that the Jews were born 
with tails rose from a consequent misinterpretation of 
the word Eabbi. 

Another ground for accepting the mystic origin of 
language has been the extraordinary and inexplicable 
moral influence which words have exercised. The 
Athenians, by a tendency which they named Asteiotes 
or Hypocorisma, systematically substituted pleasant for 
unpleasant names, and gilded the most disagreeable 
subjects with tolerable and decorous designations.^ 
The left hand being ill-omened they called ' the better' 
or ' well-named ' hand ; idiocy they called simplicity 
(cf. 'natural,' 'simpleton,' ' buon huomo'); 'taxes' 
were termed 'subscriptions' or 'contributions;' 'the 
prison' was 'the house;' the executioner 'a public 
servant;' a general abolition of debts was 'a disbur- 
dening ordinance.' ^ Now imagine the power and 

* According to Michel, and Nodier, and CoYarrnvias, taffetas is also an 
onomatopoeia from the noise made by the substance ; and a passage in 
M. Vambery's Travels (p. 173) shows this derivation to be certain, 

2 rovs 'AOrjualovs Xeyovcri ras rav irpayixdroiv Bvax^P^'^C'S hvojiacn XPV- 
CTToiis KoL <pLXav6pci>TroLS iiriKaAvTrTOPras acmLcos viroKopi^eadai.' Plutarch. 

3 See Stallbaum, Plato, Rep. p. 474 e. For the flattering hypocorisms 



282 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxii. 

danger of this hypocoristic process in times when it was 
fashionable to fling a delicate covering over the naked 
hideousness of vice. Thucydides^ in one of the most 
profound and memorable passages in his history tells us 
how the morals of the Grreeks of his day were under- 
mined^ and how carefully they concealed the ruin of 
their character under the flowers of their speech. ' The 
customary meaning of words Avith reference to actions 
they changed,' he says, * at their will and pleasure ; for 
unreasoning rashness passed as *' manliness " and '' esprit 
de corps," and prudent caution for specious cowardice ; 
sobermindedness was a mere " cloak for effeminacy," and 
general prudence was " inefficient inertness." ' ^ ^Men are 
wont for the most part,' says Procopius, ' to be ashamed 
not of base deeds but of base names.' * Venit ad me,' 
says Seneca,^ ' pro amico blandus inimicus ; vitia nobis 
sub virtutum nomine obrepunt ; temeritas sub fortitu- 
dinis titulo latet ; moderatio vocatur ignavia ; pro cauto 
timidus accipitur.' We are familiar with the ^ Steal ? 
Foil! convey the wise it call'^ of Shakspeare's rogue. 
The same hypocorisma runs through the whole vocabu- 
lary of the Argot. To take instances of such euphemism 
from Shakspeare alone, we find that ' Thieves ' call 

of lovers and parents see Pint, de Leg. Poet. p. 44 ; De Adulat, et Amic. 
Biscrimme, 56 c; Be Auditione, p. 44 f. (These are qiaoted at length 
in Stallbaum's Plato, Legg. ii. 5.) See too Lucret/iy. 1154 ; Hor. Sat, i. 
3, 37-48, &c. 

1 Thuc. Hist. iii. 82. 

^ Compare a very similar passage in Clarendon^ s Life, ii. 39. 

^ Sen. Ep. xliv. ; ia Ep, cxiv. there are some striking remarks on this 
subject. 

* Compare K. Eich. XL iv. 1 : 

' Bolingbroke. Convey him to the tower. 
K. Eich. Oh ! good ! Convey ? Conveyors are you all.' 
The French emjporteur has the same sense. 



CH.xxir. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 283 

themselves ' St. Nicholas's clerks' {Henry IV. I. ii. 1), 
'nut-hooks' {3Ierry Wives, i. 1), '^ Michers' (Henry IV. 
I. ii. 4), * Trojans' (Love's Labour'' s lost, v. 2), — any- 
thing in fact but thieves ; just as to this day among the 
low and the vicious a lie is not a lie but 'a cram;' and 
to steal is not to steal but 'to bag' or 'to crib,' and this 
devil's vocabulary gives opprobrious names to virtues, as 
well as glossing names to every vice.^ It is hardly pos- 
sible to exaggerate the effects of such words, when we 
see throughout all history the influence of single ex- 
pressions. Consider the effects produced on the Saxons 
by the word 'niedrig^ on the French by the word 
' gloire ; ' on many nations by the simple onomatopoeia 
' barbarian ;' on philosophy by the use of the word ' at- 
traction ;' on our Indian government by the misappli- 
cation of the term ' landed proprietor.' ^ All these are 

^ We must again refer to the chapter in Les Miserables by Y. Hugo. 
* One word,' Le says, ' resembles a claw ; another a lustreless and 
bleeding eye ; and some phrases seem to snap like the pincers of a crab. 
All this lives with the hideous vitality of things which are organised in 
disorganisation. It is the ugly, odious, cunning, treacherous, venomous, 
blear-eyed, vile, profound, and fatal language of misery. . . . The words 
are deformed, wild, imprinted with a kind of fantastic bestiality. You 
fancy that you hear hydras conversing ; in darkness it gnashes its teeth, 
and talks in whispers, supplementing the gloom by enigmas. It is a 
horrifying froghke language which goes, comes, hops, crawls, slavers, and 
moans monstrously in that common grey mist composed of crime, night, 
himger, vice, falsehood, injustice, nudity, asphyxia, and winter which 
is the highnoon of the wretched. . , .' 

' Mii'lababi, surlababo 

Mirliton, ribonribette 

Surlababi, mirlababo 

Mirliton ribonribo.' 
This is that shrill and leaping chorus of the galley-slaves ' which seems 
illumined by a phosphorescent gleam, and appears cast into the forest by 
a will-of-the-wisp playing the fife.' I abridge from the translation of 
Les Miserables by Sir F. Lascelles Wraxall. 
2 See Origin of Lang. p. 114. 



284 OJ^ LAIs^GUAGE. ch. xxn. 

instances of those 'rabble-charming words' which, as 
South says, 'have so much wild-fire wrapped up in 
them.' Consider again the marvellous correlation of 
Language and national morality ; ' the indefinable and 
indefinite unison of style and individual character. 
There is then ' a besotting intoxication which this 
verbal magic, if I may so call it, brings upon the mind 
of man. . . . Words are able to persuade men out of 
what they find and feel, to reverse the very impressions 
of sense, and to amuse men with fancies and paradoxes 
even in spite of nature and experience. ... He who 
shall duly consider these matters will find that there is 
a certain bewitchery or fascination in words, which 
makes them operate with a force beyond lukat we can 
naturally give account of.'' ^ 

The facts which we have here passed in review must 
receive due attention from the philologist, whatever 
theory of language he may hold. It is not strange that 
when taken in conjunction with the subtle laws which 
influence what can only be called the germination of 
language, they inspired the ancient Analogists with a 
conviction respecting their own theories, which the 
jokes and sneers of the opposite school were quite un- 
able to shake. But in spite of the apparent ominous 
force of language, in spite of its subtle sorcery, its 
hidden operative agencies, its imperceptible growth,^ 

^ ' Genus dicendi imitatur puhlicos mores ; si disciplina civitatis 
laboravit et se in delicias dedit, argumentum est luxurise publicae ora- 
tionis lascivia : si modo non in uno aut in altero sint, sed approbata et 
reeepta. Non jpotest alius esse ingenio, alius animo color.'' Seneca, Ep. 
114. See also Herder, Geist der ebraischen Poesie, i. 12. Origin of 
Lang. p. 145. 

2 South' s Sermons. 

^ Prof. Max Miiller {Lectures, i 203) considers this expression 'incon- 



CH. XXII. THE NATURE OF WOEDS. 285 

its secret germinative power — in spite even of certain 
imponderable and inexplicable elements which remain 
after all that is discoverable in the history of language 
has been subtracted, — we have seen in the course of our 
previous enquiries, and shall see further in the next 
chapter, that the Analogists were wrong; — that lan- 
guage is no diviner than any other product of the 
human intelligence; — that it contains in itself the 
germs of no new truths ; — that it has nothing whatever 
to tell us of the nature of things- 

ceivable,' and as an instance in which * poetical phraseology takes the 
place of sound and severe reasoning.' I can only reply that it is an 
obvious metaphor which approximately represents the facts and their un- 
known cause ; and it is one which he himself constantly em'ploys. See 
pp. 36, 40, 59, 66, 126, 130 of his Lectures (First edition). Indeed his 
terms are contradictory, for on p. 66 he says that his use of the word 
* growth ' means mere accretion, like that of the crust of the earth ; yet 
on p. 49 'Language requires a soil on which to grow;' and again on 
p. 59 ' Remove a language from its native soil, tear it away from the 
dialects which are its feeders, and you at once arrest its natural growth.^ 
Moreover Bunsen, the last person whom he would wish to disparage, says 
even more strongly that language ' has all the distinctive peculiarities of 
vegetable nature, &c.' Outlines, n. 135, and in i. 166 he talks of 'the 
analogy existing between the development of plants and words.' Schleicher 
says ' Die Sprachen lehen, wie alle Naturorganismen ; sie handeln nicht 
wie der Mensch, haben also keine Greschichte, woferne wir dieses Wort 
in seinem engeren und eigentlichen Sinne fassen.' Comp. d. vergl. 
Gram. p. 1. 



286 0^ LANGUAGE. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

THE NATUEE OF WOEDS — Continued, 



Words are the notes of tlioiiglit, and nothing more ; 



Words are like seashells on the shore, they show 

t has bee 
BaixeVs Festus. 



Where the mind ends, and not how far it has been. ^^- 



It has been a favourite practice with writers on Lan- 
guage to illustrate the union of sound and sense in 
Words by the analogous union of Body and Soul in 
Man ; ^ and the analogy is not unnatural, because Lan- 
guage owes its development both to physical and to 
intellectual laws. But we must not be misled by a 
mere figure of speech to the conclusion that the organic 
union of sound with sense is as inexplicable a mystery 
as the combination of soul and body into one living 
being. If the connection between them were purely 
arbitrary, if no account could be given of the conformity 
between the sign and the thing signified, we might ac- 
cept the existence of language as an ultimate fact which 
no enquiry could penetrate or explain. But we have 
seen in the previous pages that there is no reason for 
assuming that the origin of Language has been veiled 
in this divine obscurity ; so far from offering us an 

^ Becker, Organism, d. Sjprache, § 1, 2, 4. Hermann, Das Trohlem d. 
Svrache, p. 1. 



CH. xxiii. THE NATUEE OF WORDS. SSf 

insoluble problem it is capable, as we have seen, of a 
perfectly simple, perfectly natural, and perfectly demon- 
strable solution. Sounds, the material of words, are 
furnished to us by the sense of hearing acted upon by 
the Voice, — the organs of the Voice being stimulated 
to energy by a reflex action resulting from nervous im- 
pressions, whether caused by external influences or by 
inward emotions. Direct imitation of sounds (onoma- 
topoeias), as well as instinctive utterances of feeling 
(interjections), are due to this close living sympathy 
between soul and body, — the instinct of imitation being 
probably, in its earliest stages, a purely nervous pheno- 
menon and not a conscious act. 

The material of speech having thus been supplied by 
the body, and by the senses, the Soul began to play its 
part. The Imagination, working by the Law of Asso- 
ciation of Ideas, elevated the modified imitation or the 
instinctive cry into a symbol of the thing from which 
the sound emanated, or of the emotion by which the 
cry was caused. 

Then, thirdly, the Understanding seized upon this 
symbolic mark as a sign of the object signified, a sign 
capable of being banished and recalled at pleasure, and 
capable further of being elevated above the mere indi- 
vidual representation into a pure concept of an entire 
genus or species.^ 

In every word then we can distinguish three factors ; 
(i.) the sound, which is the incarnation of the thought ; 
(ii.) the inner form of the word, or the special method of 
this incarnation; and (iii.) the meaning, i.e. the intui- 

^ See Heyse, pp. 95, 160. And for a stiU fuller treatment of tlie 
whole subject Steinthal, Character, des hauptsdchlichsten Sprachbaues, 
76-105. Gramm. Log. und Fsychol. 235-320, et passim. 



288 OX LAIS^GUAGE. ch. xxiii. 

tions and concepts which the word expresses. In this 
respect a word resembles a work of art, which also con- 
tains three elements : e.g. the material of this statue is 
marble ; the form of it is a virgin figure mth sword and 
scales; and it represents Justice.^ 

Now the ancients very generally believed that words 
were images, copies, imitations, microcosms of the sensible 
world,^ — and that they expressed the nature and essence 
of things ; and similar expressions have been used dowTi 
to the latest times ; — this conception of them being, as 
we saw in the last chapter, common alike to the pro- 
foundest philosophers and the most untutored savage. 
Is there any gleam of truth in such a view ? 

Absolutely none, unless it may be supposed to lie in 
the single fancy that interjections being purely uncon- 
scious must, in the nature of things, have some myste- 
rious unison with the feelings which they indicate ; ^ and 
unless again it be imagined that there is some secret 
connection between the unknown essence of things and 
the manner in which they are capable of affecting the 
auditory nerve. 

^ Word' is etymologically connected, not with iverden^ 
to become, but with the roots ivar, luahr, op-dco, ver- 
bum, ver-wm. ; and therefore involves the notion of 
something visible, or perceptible. To call a word a 
^ copy ' of anything external is an expression almost 



^ Steinthal, Urspr. d. Sprache, p. 130. 

2 ioLKevai rais e'lKoai twv dparcov, Herael. ; aydK/xaTa ^wz/^evTO, 
Democr. They are also called dr}\(t>iiaTa, aire iKaajxaT a, ixLixTjixara, &c. 
Lersch., iii. 24, et passim. 

3 On this subject see Steinthal, Grammatik, p. 304. "Wiillner, Urspr. 
d. Sprache, p. 3. 

* Heyse, p. 115. For the deriTation of Speech, v. ante. Language 
is from Lingua, which comes from the onomatopoetic root IJc. 



CH. XXIII. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 289 

meaningless; for a word cannot in any sense be the 
exact equivalent either (i.) of a thing, or (ii.) of our 
notion of a thing. 

(i.) Words can tell us nothing whatever about things. 

For of things, of the external world, of matter, of 
the JSTon-Ego,^ we know and can know nothing what- 
ever ; in other words, it is certain that the Non-Ego is 
not only unknown but incognisable. For even in re- 
ceiving sensations the soul is active as well as passive ; ^ 
unless it were so, it would no more perceive than, a 
mirror perceives the objects reflected on its surface. It 
modifies every sensation which it receives/ and it creates 
by its own activity that synthesis of accidents which we 
call substance. It is true that in common language we 
talk of heat, colour, smell, &c., not only as sensations 
within us, but as qualities assumed to be inherent in 
things themselves. But this is a mere imbecility of 
language, since not only these secondary qualities but 
even the so-called primary qualities of figure, extension, 
solidity, &c., have long ago been proved by metaphy- 
sical enquiry to be mere modifications of our conscious- 
ness. Matter is not the cause of our cognitions, but 
only their element or part, 'Things and the senses 
can no more transmit cognitions to the mind, than a 
man can transmit to a beggar a guinea that he has not 
got.' ^ To say that our sensations teach us anything 

* If any of my readers are wholly ignorant of philosophy and its ter- 
minology, they will find nothing to understand in the next two or three 
pages ; nevertheless they contain the reasonings and conclusions of some 
of the subtlest and profoundest thinkers who ever lived. 

^ Aristotle distinctly recognised this very important fact ; ovre t?js 
»f/vx^s ihiQv rb alaQav^aQai ovre rod (T^/jLaTOS. De Somno, i. 5. 
^ See Lewes, Biogr. Hist, of Philosophy, p. 579. 

* Ferrier, Inst, of Metaphysics, p, 473, et passim. 

U 



290 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxiii. 

whatever about things in themselves is nonsense. What 
can we know about salt, for instance, if its taste, white- 
ness, shape, &c., which form the abstract complex or 
collective impression of it, be merely accidents of our 
own consciousness, or forms of the apperception ? Can 
an East wind be like the sensation of cold ? ^ Can heat 
be like boiling water ? Can pain be like the pricking • 
of a pin ? Can the nature of a poppy leaf be like 
drowsiness, or our sensation of the colour red? Can 
the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope be like the rose or 
star which we see in consequence of the arrangement of 
the mirrors placed inside the tube ? The external world 
imparts as little of its own nature to the sentient subject 
as the finger of a performer to the strings on which he 
plays, — and the sensations which we receive from it as 
little resemble it as the music evoked from those strino-s 
resembles the epidermis by the contact of which they 
are evoked.^ *Just as the little green, red, or gold 
clouds which the eye, when blinded for any length of 
time by the sun, sees flitting before it, reveal only a 
certain internal disposition of the organ of sight; so 
also do the qualities in which the world mirrors itself 
before us, reveal only the internal natural constitution 
of our own intelligence.' Nay more, speaking logically, 
the external world is posited by the activity of the Ego; 
even the belief in its existence is the result of involun- 
tary mental laws. The arguments of Fichte are logi- 
cally unanswerable, that ' all that we could know of 
things without us, even their bare existence, is still 
tuithin us, and is only a thought, a something thought 

1 Mill, Logic, i. 60 ; ii. 4. Victor Cousin, Cours d'Hist de la Fhil. Mor. 
8™^ ]e9on. 

•- Chalybaus, Eist. of Spec. Pkiios., Eng. Tr. p. 156. 



CH. xxiii. THE I^ATURE OF WORDS. 291 

of by ourselves;' — i.e. in Fichtean language '^the Ego 
posites the Non-Ego, and ascribes to it the activity, the 
causality which it is not conscious of exercising itself.' 
How then — even if we stop far short of this subjective 
Idealism — can words tell us anything whatever about 
the nature of things ? Obviously they cannot. Expe- 
rience is a mere ^tissue of relations.' The ^Ansich^ or 
intrinsic nature of things happily in no way concerns us, 
and whether it concerns us or not must for ever remain 
unknown!. 

(ii.) But perhaps Words, if they can tell us nothing 
about things^ may yet tell us something about notions, 
i.e. about ourselves, and the modifications of 'our own 
consciousness ? 

Not in the least ! The subject is and must ever 
remain for us as incognisable as the object, the Ego as 
the Non-Ego ; and for the very same reasons. We only 
knoiu the modifications, changes, accidents, sensations of 
the Ego, and we only assume an unknown something 
whose very existence consists in being thus affected. 
The Ego is nothing more than an assumed something 
stripped bare of everything whereby its existence is 
made conceivable,^ and it is unknown alike to internal 
and to external experience. It is what remains of a 
bundle of faggots when every single faggot has been 
removed and excluded ! ' It is the thought of an ab- 
stract something, invested by a paralogism of the reason 

1 Kant, Krit. d. reinen Vernunft, p. 431, quoted by Chalybaiis, p. 39. 
' That which we call "I" is the object of intellect alone. We are never 
objects of sense to ourselves.' Ferrier, Inst, of Metaph. p. 80. 'For my 
part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always 
stumble on some particular perception or other of heat, light, or shade, 
love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time 
without a perception.' David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, i. 4, 6. 

u 2 



292 0^ LANGUAGE. ch. xxiii. 

with imaginary attributes.' In the phrase of Fichte it 
is a self-intuition [Sich-selbstanschauen) — an internal 
reflection — 'the subject before which its own image 
floats as object.' In the * primitive dualism of con- 
sciousness,' the subject and object being inseparable, 
either of them apart from the other must be an un- 
known quantity ; the separation of either is the annihi- 
lation of both.^ ' The mental act in which self is known, 
implies, like every other mental act, a perceiving sub- 
ject and a perceived object. If then the object perceived 
is self, what is the subject that perceives ? or. if it is the 
triie self which thinks, what other self can it be that is 
thought of?' 

If then we can know nothing about the Ego, and 
nothing about the Non-Ego, how can words reveal to us 
either the nature of things or our own essence ? How can 
they be a jxlfjuriaLs of either of two unknown quantities ? 
And if it were conceivable that words could be, accord- 
ing to Becker, the exact organic equivalent of our 
notions, how would synonyms be possible ? The exist- 
ence of many different terms for the same conception 
is as valid against the theories of Becker as it was of 
old agaiost those of Heraclitus.^ 

It is clear therefore that we cannot rest content with 
the modern definition that ' words are the names of 
things' any more than with the old one that they are 
the 'pictures of ideas.'^ Nothing more accurate can be 
said of them than that they express the relations^ of 

^ Herbert Spencer, First Princijples, p. 65, 

2 Steintlial, Gram. p. 165. 

3 For some ancient and imperfect definitions of words see Voss. de Arte 
Gram. ii. 2, 9. 

* Garnett, Fhilol. Essays, pp. 82, 282, 



CH. xxiii. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 293 

things ; no better definition of them can be given than 
that of Hobbes that they are ^ signs of our coiice/ptions,^ 
' serving the double purpose of a naark to recall to our- 
selves the likeness of a former thought, and a sign to 
make it known to others.'^ It is obvious, says Hobbes, 
that they are not signs of the things themselves ; for 
that the sound of the word stone should be the sign of 
a stone, cannot be understood in any sense but this, 
that he that hears it collects that he that pronounces it 
thinks of a stone. 

And even as the signs of our conceptions, words are 
at the best but very imperfect, inadequate signs in 
themselves, touching the conception generally but at 
one single point like a sphere lying on a plane. Lan- 
guage, as we have said before, is but an asymptote^ to 
thought. It does not express the objective and ex- 
ternal, but the inward as affected by it ; we speak 
rightly of * expressing ourselves, not of expressing the 
world. Words are but rude signs to represent ap- 
proximately what we think about ^ the relations of 
things. We say rude signs, because no word is any 
way coordinate with the conception which it is taken to 
represent. Seizing on some characteristic mark of the 
conception it always expresses either too little or too 
much. It is sometimes distantly metaphorical, some- 
times indefinitely assertive ; sometimes too concrete, 
sometimes too abstract. In estimating words we must 
take them according to their etymological meaning. 



» J. S. Mill, Logic, i. 23. 

2 Orig. of Lang. p. 117. 

' E. g. when we say ' Sugar is sweet,' our consciousness can tell us 
nothing about the nature of sugar itself, but merely the relation which it 
holds to our organs of taste. Steinthal, Gram. p. 305. 



294 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxiii. 

and we sball then see how inadequate they are in 
themselves to involve the mass of facts which they con- 
note, — as inadequate as is a thin and worthless bit of 
paper which yet may represent a thousand pounds. 
Take the name of an animal, and it may very likely 
express some trivial and not invariable fact about its 
tail, as in alXovpos, or a vague and shadowy echo of its 
cry, as in Ai-ai or cow. Take the Latin ' Homo ; ' 
etymologically it means a creature made of earth, and 
even this is but metaphorically true, — yet for what an 
infinite complex and aggregate of conceptions and rela- 
tions does it stand ! Take such words as Virtue or 
Tugend (from vir, and taugen), and what a world of 
explanation is requisite before the words can be shown 
to be even possibly coextensive with the concept ! ^ 
Or again out of numberless instances take a word ex- 
pressive of the smallest possible modification of matter, 
— a word invented in the most expressive language in 
the world, and invented by no less eminent a philosopher 
than Democritus, and that too with great applause — 
the word atom, meaning that which cannot be cut. 
Yet simple as is the notion to be expressed, and great 
as were the resources at command, what a failure the 
mere word is ! ^ It expresses too much and too little, 
too much as being applicable to other things and con- 
sequently ambiguous ; too little, because it does not 

* The defectiveness of language is still more apparent when as in 
Chinese there is an attempt to reach, by continuous analysis, nearer and 
nearer to the expression of any conception ; when, for instance, they ex- 
press virtue by Tsun-hyan-tsye-i, i. e. fidelity- reverence-temperance- 
uprightness. The Sanskrit, as we have seen, has four names for elephant 
from different slight characteristics of the animal. ' "Were it to express 
all these qualities by one word,' says Bopp, ' it would be obliged to join 
all these names together, and to add a number of others.' 



CH. XXIII. THE T^ATURE OF WOKDS. 295 

express all the properties even of an atom.'^ Its in- 
adequacy cannot be more forcibly illustrated than by 
the fact that its precise Latin equivalent is by us con- 
fined to the single acceptation ' insect ! ' ' Thought is 
vast as the air ; it embraces far more than languages 
can express, or rather languages express nothing; — 
they only make our thoughts leap out in electric sparks 
from the speaker to the listener. A single word sug- 
gests a crowd of ideas which the spirit combines and 
collects with the rapidity of lightning.'^ 

Words then must be dethroned from that exalted 
apotheosis which they received at the hands of the 
ancient Analogists. They are but the pyramidal point 
from which our conceptions broaden down.^ The 
world of Ideas which seems in them to find its being, 
is created, not by tlienfi but by the Intelligence which 
uses them as the convenient notation by which its pro- 
blems are worked out. They are the starting-point of 
our higher Intelligence, not by any means the goal at 
which it arrives. Their value and greatness consists 
in the fact that without that starting-point no great 
intellectual achievement would have been possible. 
Yet if words are but the starting-point of the full- 
grown Intelligence, they are nevertheless the goal of 
its earlier development. Although we believe that the 
G-enesis of Words may be distinctly traced, — although 
we see in them nothing intrinsically mystical or essen- 
tially divine, — we are well aware how enormous is the 
importance of considering them carefully in the search 

* Grarnett, Essays, p. 88. 
2 Du Ponceau, p 32. 

^ ' Catervatim irruunt cogitationes nostrcB.^ See Dante, Inferno, cant, 
xxiii. 10. 



296 OX LANGUAGE. ch. xxiii. 

whether for moral, for scientific, for historical, or for 
religious truth. By earnestly studying them we are 
enabled historically to resuscitate the long-forgotten 
history of bygone millenniums, and to catch some 
glimpses into the past fortunes of nations whose very 
name and memory have been obliterated for ages^ from 
every other record. Intellectually regarded, the study 
of them initiates us into the profoundest mysteries of 
the human understanding. It is the foundation of all 
metaphysics. For it is by words alone that we can dis- 
cover ' the manner in which ideas, born of perceptions, 
present themselves all naked to the human intelligence, 
while it is still engaged in their discovery and still 
seeking to communicate them to others ; we follow the 
labour which it undergoes to arrive at this result, and 
in the want of uniformity in that labour we see the 
influence of different intellects.'^ Hence fresh lan- 
guages wisely acquired may afford us a nearer ap- 
proximation to many truths than would be otherwise 
attainable, by suggesting thoughts and conclusions 
which have evaporated from our native tongue.^ For 

* For instances see Weber, Indische SJcizzen, 9. 'A dead language is 
full of all monumental remembrances of the people who spoke it. Their 
swords and their shields are in it ; their faces are pictured on its walls ; 
and their very Toiees ring still through its recesses.' Dwight, Mod. Phil. 
i. 341. 

2 Du Ponceau, p. 13. 

' Leibnitz showed less than his usual acumen in the remark that ' si 
una lingua esset in mundo, accederet in eflfectu generi hnmano tertia 
pars vitse, quippe quae linguis impenditur.' 0pp. iii. 297, ed. Butens. 
If truth could be gained without an effort it would lose half its Talne, and 
these studies are the best discipline to prepare us for the search after 
truth. 'Studium hnguarum,' says Valcknaer, 'in nniversis, in ipsis 
primordiis triste est et ingratum ; sed primis difficultatibus labore improbo 
et ardore nobili perruptis, postea . . . cumulatissime beamui\' See 
Pott, Die JJngleichheit, &c.j p. 169. 



CH. xxiir. THE NATURE OF WORDS. 297 

^ language is the depositary of the accumulated body of 
experience, to which all former ages have contributed 
their part, and which is the inheritance of all yet to 
come.' ^ It is ' like amber circulating the electric spirit 
of truth, and preserving the relics of ancient wisdom.' ^ 
So important and indispensable is the right use of words 
to the progress of Science that some have gone so far 
as to call Science itself ' a well-constructed Language ; ' 
and, although this is an exaggeration, it is certain 
that in Scientific no less than in Eeligious history an 
ill-understood phrase, or an ambignously-framed ex- 
pression, has been sufficient to retard the progress, 
and kindle the passions, of men during centuries of 
warfare.^ 

Lastly who shall overstate the moral bearing and im- 
portance of words ? They stereotype our desires, they 
mislead our consciences, they add intensity to our 
temptations, they determine our bias, they decide our 
destiny. Once spoken they are irrevocable, indelible 
for ever. ' Words, words, words, good and bad . . . 
millions in the hour, innumerable in the day, unimagi- 
nable in the year ; what then in the life ? what in 
the history of a nation ? what in that of the world ? 
And not one of them is ever forgotten. There is a book 
where they are all set down. What a history, it has 
been well said, is this earth's atmosphere, seeing that 
all words spoken from Adam's first till now, are still 
vibrating on its sensitive unresting medium ! ' 

' Mill, Logic, ii. 225. 

^ Coleridge. 

^ How much were men's passions inflamed round the two words Homo- 
otision, and Homoionsion, and how many became in consequence the 
* martyrs of a diphthong ! ' 



298 0^ LANGUAGE. ch. xxiii. 

Be our scientific conclusions and our philological 
studies what they may, it is well for every man to con- 
sider solemnly such truths as these ; it is above all a 
duty for one who writes a book, and that book a book 
on words. And therefore, gentle reader, I will add 
this word only about myself, — that before writing I 
have read diligently, and what I have written I have 
striven to write honestly, loving the truth and aiming 
at truth only, endeavouring not to forget even in the 
midst of controversy that ' it is by a man's words 
that he is justified and by a man's words that he is 
condemned.' 



299 



BOOKS CONSULTED. 



It may be a convenience to students of this subject, if I add 
a list of those books which, among many others, I have ex- 
pressly consulted in this work, and to which I have constantly 
referred. The extent to which I am indebted to the various 
authors will be indicated in the notes. I have never con- 
sciously omitted my fullest acknowledgments when I am 
indebted to others for any facts, thoughts, or expressions 
which I have adopted. There is no book in the following list 
which I have not myself read through, or frequently used ; 
and I have omitted many to which more cursory reference 
was made. 

GREEK. 

Plato, Cratylus. (Ed. Eekker.) 

Aristotle, Bhetoric and Poetics. 

All the most important fragments of the ancient poets, philosophers, 

and orators on this subject, and extracts from the most important 

grammarians, may be found collected in 
L. Lersch. Die Sprachjihilosophie der Alien. Bonn, 1838-41. 
A, Grafenheim, Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie im Alterthum. 

Bonn, 1846. 

LATIN. 

Varro, De lAngud Latind. 

QuiNCTiLiAN, Institutiones Oratories. (Ed. Burmann.) 

P. KuTiLius Ltjpus, Be Figuris. (Ed. Euhnken.) 

Sanctius, Minerva. 

Vossius, Be Arte Grammaticd, 

LoBECK, Aglaophamus. 

BocHART, Hierozoicon. 

Glassius, Philologia Sacra. 

Michaeler, Be Origine Lingucs. 

Premare, Notitia Lingum Siniea. 



300 BOOKS COIS'SULTED. 



GER]\IAN. 

Grimm, TJeher den TJrsprung der Sprache. 
Pott, Etymologische Forschungen. Lemgo, 1833. 
„ Die Ungleichheit menschlicher Rassen. Id. 1856. 
„ Anti-Kaulen. Id. 1863. 
„ Boppelung. Id. 1862. 
Steinthax, Der Ursprung der Sprache. Berlin, 1858. 

„ Grammatik, Logik, und Psychologie. Id. 1855. 

,, CharaJcteristik der haupts'dchlichsten Sprachbaues. Id. 1860. 

„ Cieschichte der Sprachwissensckaft. Id. 1863. 

„ Fhilologie, GesckicMe und Psyckologie. Id. 1864. 

AtJG. Schleicher, Vergleichende Grammatik. Weimar, 1861. 

„ Die Barwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft. 

1863. 
Heyse, System der Sprachwissenschaft. Berlin, 1856. 
Bopp. Comparative Grammar. (Engl. Tr.) 
M. Drechsler, Grundlegung zur wissenschaftlichen Konstruction, 

S^c. Erlangen, 1830. 
F. HiTziG, Die Erfindung des Alphahetes. Ziirich, 1840. 
Herder, l)er Ursprung der Sprache. 
C. HERMAim, JDas Problem der Sprache. Dresden, 1865. 
C. VoiGTMAN, Die Bau-wau Theorie, ^~c. Leipzig, 1865. 
F. WiJLLNER, Uiher den Ursprung der Sprache. Miinster, 1838. 
L. WiENBARG, Das Geheimniss des Wortes. Hamburg, 1852, 
DiEZ, Gramm. d. roman. Sprachen. (Engl. Tr., Cayxet, 1863.) 
„ Etymologisches Wbrterbuch. (Engl. Tr., Donkin, 1865.) 

FRENCH. 

E. Arnoued, Essai de Theorie et d'Hist. Litteraire. 
PiCTBT, if5 Origines Indo-europeennes. Paris, 1859. 

Egger, Notions Eleraentaires de Grammaire Coraparee. 5™^ ed. Paris, 
1857. 
„ Apolloniics Dyscole, Ess. sur VHist. des Formes Grammaticales. 
Paris, 1854. 
Maury, La Terre et V Homme. 
Kenan, Hist, des Langues Semitiques. Paris, 1858. 
,, De V Origine dit Langage. 2"^ ed. Paris, 1858. 

F. Michel, Etudes sur V Argot. Paris, 1856. 
Charma, Essai sur le Langage. Paris, 1846. 
C. Nodier, Notions de Linguistique. 

„ Dictionnaire des Onomatopees. Paris, 1828. 



BOOKS CONSULTED. 301 

Varinot, Bid. des Meta-phores. Paris, 1819. 

ScHELER, Diet, d' ^tymologie Frangaise. Brussels, 1862. 

NiSARD, CuriosiUs d' Etymologie Frangaise. Paris, 1863. 

C. Lenorman, Comment, surle Cratyle. Athens, 1861. 

Salverte, Hist, of Names. (Engl. Tr., Mordacque, London, 1864.) 

Etienne bu Ponceau, Mem. sur le Systeme Grammatical des Langues 

Indiennes. Paris, 1838. 
L. Benloew, Sur quelques Caracteres des Langages Primitifs. Paris, 

1863. 
L. Benloew, SurVOrigine des Noms de Nomhre. Griessen, 1861. 
Chavee, Les Langues et les Eaces. Paris, 1862. 
Ladevi Eoche, I>e VOrigine du Langage. Bordeaux, 1860. 
F. Baudry, Be la Science du Langage et de son Etat Actuel. Paris, 

1864. 
P. Mervoyer, Etudes sur V Association des Idees. Paris, 1864. 
Maine de Biran, Origine du Langage : CEuvres Inedites, iii. 229 sq^. 
Btdletins de la Societe d' Anthropologic. Paris. 
Venture de Paradis, Gram, et Bict. ahrege de la Langue Berhere. 

Paris, 1844. 
Leon Pages, Essai de Gram. Japonaise. 



ENGLISH. 

BuNSEN, Bhilosophy of Universal History. London, 1854. 
Max MtiLLER, Survey of Languages. 2nd ed. London, 1855. 

„ Lectures on the Science of Language. (First Series.) 

London, 1861. 
„ Lectures on the Science of Language. (Second Series.) 

London, 1864. 
Garnett, Bhilological Essays, edited by his Son. London, 1859. 
Dr. Donaldson, The New Cratylus. 2Dd ed. London, 1850. 
„ Varronianus. 2nd ed. London, 1852. 

„ Maskille Sopher. London, 1848. 

Hensleigh Wedgwood, Etymological Bictionary, i. ii. London, 1859. 
Transactions of the Philological Society. Loudon, 1844-1861. 
Latham, The English Language. 4th ed. London, 1855. 

,, Varieties of Man. 

DwiGHT, Modern Philology. First Series. New York, 1859. 
„ „ ,, Second Series. „ 1864. 

Botes, Illustrations to the Greek Tragedians. 

IBLOiiNii ToQ-K^, Biversions of Purley. (Ed. Tayeor.) London, 1860. 
Harris, Hermes. 
CsiOWBiE, English Etymology and Syntax. 8th ed. 1856. 



302 BOOKS COlSrSULTED. 

Ltell, Antiqxdty of Man. London, 1863. 
Dr. Dak, Welson, Prehistoric Man. 1864, 
Is. Taylor, Words and Places. London, 1864. 
T. Hewitt Key, The Alphabet. 

„ QiKBritur : A Pamphlet. London, 1864. 

lslx-RS'a,Manualof the English Language. (Ed, Sjhth.) London, 1862. 
Sir Gr. C, Le"^t:s, Essay on the Romance Languages. 2nd ed. London, 

1862. 
EwALD, Hebrew Grammar. (Engl, Tr., Nicholsok, 1836.) 
Ceawfued, Malay Dictionary and Grammar. 
Appleyaed, Kafir Grammar. 
IVL^RSHMAN, Chinese Grammar. 
Caldwell, Grammar of the Dravidian Languages. 
Theelkeld, Australian Grammar. Sydney, 1834, 
CM..^., ^ew Zealand Grammar and Vocabulary. London, 1820. 
J, S. Mill, System of Logic. London, 1851. 
Gr, H, Le-v^-es, Biographical History of Philosophy. 2nd edition. 

London, 1862. 
Heebert Spencee, First Principles. London, 1862, 
Chalybaus, History of Speculative Philosophy. (Translated by A. 

TuLK.) London, 1854, 
Eeerier, Institutes of Metaphysics. Edinburgli, 1854. 
Fleming, Vocabulary of Philosophy. London, 1857. 

ITALLIN. 

Biondelli, Studii Linguistici. Milan, 1856. 



303 



INDEX. 



ABS 

A BSTEACTION, rare in savage 
-^ languages, 63, 199, 200, 219, 

note 
Adam, his onomothesia, 10 note 

— theories about, 47 

— Cowper's lines on, id. 
iEgles, story of, 102 
JElian, quoted, 74 
Alphabet, origin of, 134 

— Hebrew, 136 

— Greek, id. 

— analogy of its origin to that of 

language, 137, 192-196 
Analog! sts and Anomalists, 22, 
184, 257-263 

— nniversahty of Analogist views, 

264 foil. 
Analogy, the part it plays in lan- 
guage, 204 

— the source of knowledge, 218 

— of sound and sight, 8 1 
Animals, the earliest objects to re- 
ceive names, 16 

Animal names, classes of, 23 

— — generally omomatopoetic, 24 
in Australian, 25 

in New Zealand, id. note 

in Algonquin, id. 

in Chinese, 26 

in Sanskrit, 26-28 

in Hebrew, 29 

in Egyptian, id. 

in American languages, 30 

— — in various Argots, 31, note 

from observed qualities, 30 

formed by misapplication, 

31-34 
Anomalists. See Analogists 
Anthropomorphism, 8 



CLA 

Antiphrasis, 254 

Argots, their philological import- 
ance, 35 

— abound in onomatopoeia, 36 

— their character, 35 

— various names for, 235 

— deal in metaphor, 236 

— Victor Hugo on, id., 283 note 
Armenian merchants, 72 

Art, a language addressed to the 

eye, 72 
Artificial languages, 37 
Atbash, 270 note 
Augustine, quoted, 8, 185 
Aulus Crellius, quoted, 102 



"OACON, quoted, 210, 219 
-^-^ Battus, story of, 102 
Bekos, an onomatopceia for the 

bleat of goats, 14 
Benfey, 174 
Benloew, 225 

Bow-wow theory, criticism of the 
term, 19 



pANNON, 188 

^-^ Cassiodorus, quoted, 75 

Cat, 146, 176 

Catachresis, 213 

Childhood of mankind, 13 

Chinese writing, 192-196, 198 

— names for animals, 26 

— metaphors, 216 note 

— attempt at continuous analysis 

294 
Clarion, 188 
Claudius, his antisigma, 37 



304 



INDEX. 



COL 

Colours, metaphors from, 223 

Concepts, 66 

Convention, 121 

Cow, derived, 127, 142, 145 note 

Crawfurd, quoted, 199 

Cydippe, 114 



"pvAEWIN, Ms hypothesis, 49, 
-^^ 155 vote 

Deaf-mutes, their power of invent- 
ing signs, 16 

— universally intelligible, 74 
Democritus, 261 

— his anomalist arguments, 262 
De Quincy, quoted, 173, 178 
Dog, 147 

— barking not natural to, 148 

— names for, onomatopoetic, 149 
Donaldson, quoted, 174 

Dove, 145 
Duck, 144 
Du Ponceau, 199 



Tj^AGEK, 185 

^-^ Epicurus, 109, 261 

Etymology, 172 

— its vagaries, 173 

— Varro's rule, 196 

— fictions of, 269 note 
Euphemism, 278 

Expression, by means of touch, 72 

— by gestures, 73 



•p'ANCY, 183 

-*- — its influence on the devel- 
opment of language, 113 
Frederic II., 13 
Foul, &e., etymology of, 174 



(^ARNETT, quoted, 54, 197 
^-^ Garrick, story of, 77 
Gender, due to fancy, 212 
Genesis, account of origin of Lan- 
guage in, 17 
Gesture, its power, 74 

— its defects, 77 

— its abuse, 78 



INT 

Goatsucker, onomatopoetic names 

for, 142 
Goose, 143 
Gregory of Nyssa, quoted, 9 



TT EARING, 79 

Hebrew, paucity and vague- 
ness of its words, 228- 
230 
Hen, 144 
Heraclitus, 260 
Herder, quoted, 11 
Hieroglyphics, 135 

— Chaeremon on, 222 
Hog, 146 

Homonyms, 234, 262 
Hypocorisma, 281 

— its dangerous influence, 282 



TDEAS, growth of, 7 

— various, how expressed, 201 
Ideography, Egyptian, 135 

— Chinese, 192-195 
Imagination, its influence on lan- 
guage, 114 

— gender due to, 212 

— leads to personification and 

mythology, 214: foil. 
Imitation, instinct of, 72 

— its importance, 109 

— it is a kind of intellectual as- 

similation, 110 

— reproduces impressions, 110 

— may be phonetically coincident 

with words. 128 
Interjections, their origin, 88 

— two classes of, 89 

— in different languages, 90 

— not adverbs, 91 

— Home Tooke on, 92 

— declinable in Basque, 93 

— th eir linguistic rank vindicated, 

94, 98 

— the most immediate exponents 

of passion, 99 

— their use in literature, id. 

— their naturalness, 100 

— their expressiveness, 101 

— contain the idea of speech, 103 



INDEX. 



305 



Intuitions, 65 

— correspond, in the parallel de- 
velopment of language, to 
roots, 119 

Irony, 254 



TAMES IV., 13 

Juventinus,AlbusOvidiu3,his 
Philomela, 128 oiote 



K 



EY, Prof. T. Hewitt, quoted, 
127 note, 174 note, 200 note 



T ACTANTIUS, quoted, 1 

-^^ Lamb, 143 

Language, not revealed, 2-12 

— its human origin asserted in 

the Bible, 8 

— idea of, 19 

— not a dead matter, id. . 

— stronger than Emperors, 37 

— at a low ebb among some savage 

tribes, 43 

— and among our own peasants, 59 

— in what sense a discovery, 54 

— reverts to its primary instincts, 

58 

— tactile, 72 

— manual, 73 

— its primitive freedom, 114 

— its unerring instinctive power, 

117 

— becomes mechanical only by 

corruption, 138 

— processes of, 255 

— belief in its revelation, 272 

— life of, 284 note 

— not coextensive with thought, 

294, 295 
Languages, number of, 5 

— of savage tribes, 50 

— their supposed perfection test- 

ed, 52 

— their cumbrous synonyms, 53 

— their poverty of expression, 54 

— Mr. Garnett on, 54 

— Mr. Gallatin on, 55 

— eked out by signs, 73 

— rarely generalize, 199 



MET 

Languages, philosophical, 243 
Lautgeberclen, or vocal gestures, 
18,87 

— may be represented by signs, 

104 

— rise above other interjections, 

105 

— are a stepping-stone to lan- 

guage, 105 

— the origin of form-words, 124 
Legends on the origin of language, 

117 
— • Esthonian, 118 

— Australian, 119 
Leibnitz, quoted, 60, 296 otote 
Lersch, 259 note 

Letters, their supposed symbolic 

power, 263 
Lingua Franca, 125 note 
Lute, 188 
Luther, 8 



lyTALAY, 199 

-^ Man, once without language, 
39 

— on any theory, 41 

— his primitive degradation, 42 

— low races of, 43-45 

— in a state of nature, 45 

— in the image of God, 49 note 
Metaphor, 204-246 

— confusion of, 209 note, 218 

— deliberate, 217 

— founded on analogy, 218 

— in numerals, 223-228 

— necessary, 241 

— and advantageous, 242-246 
Metaphors, for the soul, &c., 219- 

222 

— obscured by time, 227 

— among the Kalmucks, 228 

— in the Koran, id. 

— in Hebrew, 230 

— in Greek tragedy, 231 

— characteristic of periods, 282 

— in Kafir, 233 

— in Malay, id. 

— in Chinese, id. 

— in various Argots, 236 

— gradiially evanesce, 238 



306 



INDEX. 



MET 

Metaphors, confusion of, in Shak- 
speare, Milton, &e., 239-241 

Minstrel, 188 

Misapplication of words, 217 

Miiller, Prof. Max, apparent modi- 
fication of his views on onoma- 
topoeia, 97 

— vagueness, on the origin of 

roots, 107 

— his objections to onomatopoeia, 

&c., criticised, 130-202, et 
passim 
Mythology, source of, 215 



IVTAMES, their supposed mystic 
■•-^ import. 269-271 

— plays on, in the Bible, 270 

— in the tragedians, 273-275 

— among the Eomans, 275 

— in Shakspeare, &c., 276 

— changed in scorn, 277 

euphemistically, 278 

Natural sounds, 17 
Negro jargon, 126 note 
Newt, 188 

Nodier, Charles, his Dictionnaire 

des Onomatopees, 132 
Nominalists, 4 
Notions, 66 



ONOMATOPOEIA defined, 122- 
126 

— reverted to, when new words 

have to be coined, 30 
— ■ its instinctive use, 34 

— progress of, 126 

— used by the intellect to develope 

language, 127 

— not an illusory principle, 171 

— nor unscientific, id., 173-177 

— imperiously demanded by in- 

stinct, 178 

— not fanciful, 183 

— the only possible origin of lan- 

guage, 184 

— in poetry, 186, 187 

— reflex tendency to, 187, 188 

— applicable to all kinds of con- 

ceptions, 190-203 



PSA 

Onomatopoeia, can be used for 
things which emit no sound, 
204 

Onomatopoeias, but few necessary, 
18 

— their function, id. 

— used by wild children, 20 

— abound in savage languages, 

20 

— reflex, 27 

— the widely various forms they 

assume, 112-114 

— are ideal reflections, 114 

— for thunder, 115 

— modified or rejected when they 

have fulfilled their function, 
128 

— suggested roots, 129 

— not few in number, 131 

— dictionaries of, 132 

— the only intelligible roots, 133 

— most animals' names are, 140 

— and birds, 141 note 

— are not sterile, 152 

— their variety, 153 

— are the sound-cells in which 

speech can germinate, 155 

— found in numerals, 162 

— their dignity, 166 

— their use in poetry, 168 



pALAMEDES, 136 
-*- Paronomasia, 265 

— in the Bible, 266, 272 
Perception, its nature, 64 
Perrault, quoted, 112 
Personification, 214 
Phaedrus, quoted. 111 
Philoxenus, story of, 91 
Phonetic types, a mystic term, 123 

not conceivable, 154 

Pictet, quoted, 26, 28 

Pigeon Enghsh, 126 
Plutarch, referred to, 19 
Pott, 115, 117 
Proclus, 255 

Psammetichus, his experiment, 
13-21 

— probably true, 14 

— conclusions from it, id. 



INDEX. 



307 



REA 

■OEALISATION of the Ego, 62 
-f-*^ Eelations, of things, are sub- 
jective, 208 

— imaginary, 215, 216 
Eepresentation, 65 
Revelations, plurality of, 2 
Eichter, J. P., 227 

Boots, inexplicable theory of, 23, 
58 and note 

— express aU parts of speech at 

once, 59, 197 
■ — a mere 'root' oifers no etymo- 
logy, 95-97 

— what was their origin, 107 

— correspond to intuitions, 119 

— have no independent existence, 

120 

— the root ma, 156 

— tlie root j9fl;, 158 

— ta, da, ha, 159 

— other roots, 160-64 

— verbal or predicative roots not 

the earliest, 196 

— primary and secondary, 198 

— their many-sidedness, 251 

— due to the economy of language, 

253 
Eossignol, 188 



OANCTIUS, quoted, 100 
^ Science, martyrs of, 7 note 
Sensation, nature of, 60 
Senses, variety of, 206 

— one sensorium, 207 and note 

— interchange of, 208-210 

— analogy between, 211 
Simonides, 136 

Soul, 220 

— analogies for, 221 

Sound, the best medium of expres- 
sion, 79 

— elements of vocal, 86 

— must have had an original con- 

nection with sense, 121-122, 
286 

— symbolic power of, 186 

— its universality, 205 

— and light, 209 
Sparrow, 145 



WOR 

Speech, its origin comprehensible, 

69. See Language 
Squirrel, 176 
Substance, 207 
Sugar, 184 
Sumner, Archbishop, 2 



rPALMA, story of, 76 
-*- TertuUian, quoted, 57 
Theology, its injurious opposition 

to science, 7 
Thought, steps of its development, 

62-70 
Thunder, etymology of, 177-182 
Tryzus, story of, 74 



TTIMLAUT, 170 note 
^ Understanding, 6 



■T7ATHEK, referred to, 116 

^ Verbs, 197 
Voice, 83 

— its mechanical production, 84 

— its influence, 83 note 
Voss, quoted, 75 



T7t7EDGWOOD, Hensleigh, his 
' ' Dictionary of English Ety- 
mology, 132 
Words, derived from misappHed 
resemblances, 32-33 

— when now invented, are gene- 

rally onomatopoetic, 37 . 

— correspond to ' representations,' 

120 

— developed from natural sounds, 

121, 127 

— not mere crude echoes, 132 

— blurred by time, 133 

— derived from sensational roots, 

133 

— surfrappes, 138 

— dislike of needless words, 217 

— mystic importance attached to, 

in the Bible, 265-272, 279 

— symbolic power of, 280 

— fatal force of, 284 



308 



INDEX. 



WOR 
reflect character, 



284 



Words 
note 

— steps in their history, 287 

— not copies or images of things, 

288 

— derivation of, 288 

— teach us nothing about the 

non-Ego, 289-291 



WRI 

"Words teach us nothing about the 
Ego, 291-292 

— are signs of our conceptions, 

293 

— their inadequacy at the best, 

294 

— their importance, 296-298 
Writing, 135, 192-196 



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